The Chrysantheme Papers: The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysantheme and Other Documents of French Japonisme

literature

portrait of Félix Régamey, 1876, from Emile Guimet, Promenades japonaises, vol. 2: Tokio-Nikko (Paris: G. Charpentier, 1880). Front-cover art: Félix Régamey, watercolor illustration on the front endpapers of one copy of Le Cahier Rose de Madame Chrysanthème (Paris: Bibliothèque Artistique et Littéraire, 1894). By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Cover design: Julie Matsuo-Chun

Christopher Reed is associate professor of English and visual culture at the Pennsylvania State University.

Reed the Chrysanthème Papers

Back-cover art: Kawanabe Kyosai,

Pierre Loti’s novel Madame Chrysanthème (1888) enjoyed great popularity during the author’s lifetime, served as a source of Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly, and remains in print to this day as a classic in Western literature. Loti’s story, cast in the form of his fictionalized diary, describes the affair between a French naval officer and Chrysanthème, a temporary “bride” purchased in Nagasaki. More broadly, Loti’s novel helped define the terms in which Occidentals perceived Japan as delicate, feminine, and, to use one of Loti’s favorite words, “preposterous”—in short, ripe for exploitation.Â� Written by Félix Régamey, a talented illustrator with firsthand knowledge of Japan, The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème (1893) retells Loti’s story but this time as the diary of Chrysanthème. The book, presented here in an elegant English translation for the first time and together with the original French text and illustrations by Régamey and others, provocatively anticipates certain aspects of postmodern literature. Translator Christopher Reed’s rich and satisfying introduction compares Loti and Régamey in relation to attitudes toward Japan held by notable Japonistes Vincent van Gogh, Lafcadio Hearn, Edmond de Goncourt, and Philippe Burty. Reed provides further intellectual context by including new translations of excerpts from Loti’s novel as well as a portion of the travel journal of Régamey’s travel companion, the renowned collector Emile Guimet. Reed’s emphasis on competing Western ideas about Japan challenges conventional scholarly generalizations concerning Japanism in this era.

the Chrysanthème Papers the pink notebook of madame chrysanthème and other documents of french japonisme

ISBN 978-0-8248-3437-1

UNIVERSITY of HAWAI‘I PRESS Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888

90000

9 780824 834371 www.uhpress.hawaii.edu

C hristopher R eed

The Chrysanthème Papers

Translated and with an Introduction by Christopher Reed 

The

Chrysanthème Papers The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème and other documents of french japonisme

University of Hawai‘i Press honolulu

© 2010 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 15â•… 14â•… 13â•… 12â•… 11â•… 10â•…â•…â•… 6â•… 5â•… 4â•… 3â•… 2â•… 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Chrysanthème papers : The pink notebook of Madame Chrysanthème and other documents of French Japonisme / translated and with an introduction by Christopher Reed. p. cm. In English and French. Includes selections from Pierre Loti’s Madame Chrysanthème and Emile Guimet’s Walks through Japan (Promenades japonaises) in the original French and in English translation.Â� Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0-8248–3345–9 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0-8248–3437–1 (pbk. : alk. paper) €1.€ French literature—19th century. 2.€ Japan—Fiction. 3.€ Loti, Pierre, 1850–1923. Madame Chrysanthème. 4.€ Japan—In literature.€ I. Reed, Christopher. II. Régamey, Félix, 1844–1907. Cahier rose de Mme Chrysanthème. English & French. III. Loti, Pierre, 1850–1923. Madame Chrysanthème. English & French. Selections. IV. Guimet, Emile, 1836–1918. Promenades japonaises. English & French. Selections. V. Title: Pink notebook of Madame Chrysanthème and other documents of French Japonisme. PQ1139.J36C57 2010 840.9'952—dc22 2009046316 University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanenceÂ�and durability of the Council on LibraryÂ�Resources. designed by julie matsuo-chun printed by versa press

Contents

vii

1



Acknowledgments

Introduction by Christopher Reed

61

Part I The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème

63



The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème

by Félix Régamey

64



67

Preface



77

Dedication



79

The Pink Notebook



93





Notes on the Translation

Le Cahier Rose de Madame Chrysanthème

par Félix Régamey



Préface



95



105

Dédicace



107

Le Cahier Rose

121

Part II Selections from Madame Chrysanthème, Pierre Loti, and Walks through Japan, Emile Guimet



123



Introductory Note



127



Madame Chrysanthème by Pierre Loti



135



Madame Chrysanthème par Pierre Loti



143



Walks through Japan by Emile Guimet



153



Promenades Japonaises par Emile Guimet

163

Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is dedicated to my father, Gervais Reed, whose expert assistance is manifested in the translation. It is inspired by him in other ways as well. Raised in a small town in rural Kansas, my father went to Reims, France, as a high school exchange student in the early days of the Experiment in International Living. With the help of his host family, the Butrilles, he experienced France as a kind of paradise and remade his life around that ideal. Growing up with him made me sympathetic to—and curious about—such acts of imaginative identification, which I recognized in Régamey’s text. I will always be grateful that this translation gave my father and me a project to share during what neither of us knew were the last months of his life. I am also grateful for the enthusiasm and helpful contributions of librarians Cory Stevens of Lake Forest College and Russell Maylone of Northwestern University. Francis Macouin of the Musée Guimet generously shared images and other notes on Régamey. Akiko Kato took the time to track down research materials from Japanese libraries. I learned a great deal from teaching with HeatherÂ�Bowen-Struyk. Research in France was supported by the Faculty Career Enhancement Project of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, funded by the Andrew J. Mellon Foundation. Permissions fees for the illustrations in this volume were subvened by the College of Liberal Arts of the Pennsylvania State University. Early generous readers were Andre

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A cknowledgments

Dumbrowski, Katherine Jensen, Pamela J. Warner, and my wonderful colleagues in the visiting scholars program at the Georgia O’Keeffe Research Center, Libby Bischof and Jonathan Walz. I also benefited greatly from the suggestions of my new colleagues in a writing group at the Pennsylvania State University: Hester Blum, Charlotte Eubanks, Sean Goudie, Eric Hayot, Alex Huang, Rio Riofrio, Ben Schreier, and Scott Smith. Tirza Latimer has been a dear friend, generous colleague, and helpful reader throughout this project. Sincere thanks to Kelly Murphy for transcribing the French text. Christopher Castiglia was with me in this, as in everything I do.

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INTRODUCTION

Pierre Loti and Madame Chrysanthème That Pierre Loti’s Madame Chrysanthème is a key text in the history of Occidental perceptions of Japan is often averred: “in the late nineteenth century Loti’s Japan became Europe’s Japan,” and “no other French work had such an impact in shaping attitudes toward Japan at the turn of the century.”1 Loti’s novel, presented as the autobiographical journal of a naval officer who takes a temporary “wife” in Nagasaki, was serialized in Le Figaro in 1887, published as a lushly illustrated book in 1888, reprinted 222 times during the author’s lifetime, and translated into every major European language. An English translation by Laura Ensor, first published in 1889, has been frequently reissued.2 Loti was elected to the Académie Française in 1891 at the precocious age of forty-one. The popularity of Loti’s tale sparked numerous imitations and variations. As early as 1888, the impact of Loti’s story was registered by the artist Mortimer Menpes, who published an etching titled My Lady Chrysanthemum to illustrate his own account of his travels in Japan the year before (fig. 1). In 1893 André Messager premiered a light opera based on Loti’s novel. Although Messager’s Madame Chrysanthème was neither a critical nor a popular success, subsequent variations—most notably John Luther Long’s novella Madame Butterfly, which was serialized in 1898, became a play in 1900, a book in 1901, and an opera by Giacomo Puccini in 1904—found happier receptions.

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Fig. 1. Mortimer Menpes, My Lady Chrysanthemum, dry-point, 1887, from “A Personal View of Japanese Art: A Lesson from Khiosi,” Magazine of Art 11 (April 1888).

Messager’s opera was not the only revision of Madame Chrysanthème to appear in 1893. Apparently provoked by the opera—or, more specifically, by the renewed attention it brought to Loti’s writings on Japan3—the illustrator Félix Régamey conceived an account of Loti’s adventure from Chrysanthème’s perspective. Originally published in the magazine La Plume, Régamey’s The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème was reissued as a book in 1894 and is presented here

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in translation for the first time. “In this pretty little book, Mr. FélixÂ� Régamey,Â� the well-known artist, has endeavored to avenge Japan for the adjectives that Pierre Loti has inflicted on it,” explained Le Figaro’s reviewer: “He gives speech to the poor woman against her unfaithful husband.”4 This text, in which a French man assumes the voice of a Japanese woman, is—to say the least—surprising in its latenineteenth-century context. It deserves notice in the history of transnational literatures for the insights it allows into the complex history of Western attitudes toward Japan. Prescient of trends often associated with “post-ness” (postmodernism, postcolonialism), Régamey’s Pink Notebook and the contexts for it sketched in this Introduction suggest the ambiguities in dynamics of nationalism, gender, identification, and exploitation that, since the nineteenth century, have characterized Western relationships to Japan.5 In taking on Loti’s popular Madame Chrysanthème, Régamey confronted both a textual and a visual phenomenon. Apart from the chain of influence that led to Puccini’s opera, Loti’s novel plays a substantial role in the history of art. Vincent van Gogh read Madame Chrysanthème in 1888 in Arles, the town in southern France he praised as (in good weather) “absolute Japan.” This reference was less to the look of Arles than to Van Gogh’s hope that artists might work together there as he believed artists did in Japan, intuitively and collaboratively, free from the rules and hierarchies that characterized the production and display of European art. Being in Arles,Â� Van Gogh wrote, “one’s sight changes: you see things with an eye more Japanese, you feel color differently. The Japanese draw quickly, very quickly, like a lightning flash, because their nerves are finer, their feeling simpler.” Thus he could describe his own drawings, “which do not look Japanese, but which really are.” Reading Madame Chrysanthème at this period, a fascinated Van Gogh wrote to his brother, “it gave me the impression that the real Japanese have nothing on their walls . . . (their drawings and curiosities all being hidden in the drawers). That is how you must look at Japanese art, in a very bright room, quite bare, and open to the country.” Van Gogh compared his studio in Arles to these sparsely furnished Japanese rooms and urged his brother to find a similar space in which to study the drawings he was sending back to Paris.6 Similarly, Van Gogh said of a portrait he painted of an adolescent girl from Arles, “if you know what a ‘mousmé’ is (you will know when you have read Loti’s Madame Chrysanthème), I have just painted one.” He explained, “A

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mousmé is a Japanese girl—Provençal in this case—twelve to fourteen years old” (fig. 2).7 Although Van Gogh picked up this term from Loti’s story, which popularized mousmé as French slang for a pretty girl, the artist’s enthusiasm for Madame Chrysanthème derived less from the text than from the pictures that embellished the sumptuous Edition de Figaro book of 1888 and reappear in many translations.8 Luigi Rossi and Félician Myrbach illustrated almost every second page of Loti’s text with scenes and vignettes suggestive of Japan. Expanding upon Loti’s words, they added emphasis and detail, richly visualizing incidental phrases, such as Loti’s brief description of a passing funeral

Fig. 2. Vincent van Gogh, La Mousmé, 1888, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

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procession:Â�“Bonzes [Buddhist priests] march in front dressed in robes of black gauze, having much the appearance of Catholic priests” (xxiii). Loti’s comparison to the Catholic clergy disappears in Myrbach’s illustration, which instead emphasizes what is specifically Japanese: the bald heads of the bonzes echoed by the paper lantern bobbing above (fig. 3). Such details, absent from Loti’s text, drew from earlier illustrated books about Japan, prominent among them Emile Guimet’s Promenades japonaises (Walks through Japan), which was published in two volumes in 1878 and 1880 (translations of representative extracts from this text can be found in Part II of this book). Before the Rossi and Myrbach edition of Madame Chrysanthème, Guimet’s book was probably the most lavishly illustrated French travel narrative about Japan—so lavishly illustrated, in fact, that in his conclusion to the first volume, Guimet humorously blames his travel companion for forcing him to take two volumes to tell his story: “It is his fault. He made too many drawings. Never has a book been seen with so many

Fig. 3. Félician Myrbach, illustration of bonzes in Pierre Loti, Madame Chrysanthème (Paris: Editions du Figaro, 1888).

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illustrations, page headers, capital letters, tailpieces, and full page engravings . . . so much so that the poor author no longer had room to arrange his little sentences.”9 Guimet’s prolific travel companion and artistic collaborator was, of course, Félix Régamey (fig. 4). The derivative illustrations embellishing Madame Chrysanthème, which contributed to the appeal of what he perceived as a tendentious text, must have contributed to Régamey’s anger at Loti’s novel. He cannot have been oblivious to the fact that Rossi and Myrbach’s pictures for this fiction gained far wider circulation and more acclaim than his illustrations based on sketches made in situ in Japan. Rossi and Myrbach’s images remain so definitive of late-nineteenth-century French perceptions of Japan that recent scholarship on a Van Gogh self-portrait of 1888, which represents the artist, as he put it, “in the character of a simple bonze worshipping the Eternal Buddha” (fig. 5), traces its source to one of Myrbach’s illustrations in Madame Chrysanthème.10 Van Gogh’s emphasis on his bald head in isolation, however, more closely resembles Régamey’s illustrations in Promenades japonaises (fig. 6), and Van Gogh’s individualization of—and identification with—the image of the bonze is closer to the spirit of Régamey’s reportage than to Madame Chrysanthème’s touristic evocations of local color. Van Gogh in all likelihood saw both illustrations before conceiving himself as a bonze, but my point is not to identify the source for a self-portrait that manifestly stands on its own.11 My point is, rather, how quickly Loti’s Madame Chrysanthème eclipsed other accounts of Western perceptions of Japan. That this novel should be taken as the truth about Japan infuriated Régamey. His Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème sought to counter the novel’s authority by revealing what he saw as the truth about Loti: that his treatment of Japan was self-indulgent to the point of cruelty. Even at the time, Régamey was not Madame Chrysanthème’s only critical reader. Lafcadio Hearn, the expatriate Irish writer who was inspired by Loti’s earlier writings to travel to—and ultimately settle in—Japan, eventually soured on the novelist.12 Hearn had been among those who accepted the accuracy of Loti’s evocations of foreign lands. In 1884 Hearn praised the originality of Loti, who, though he “traveled only in countries where other children of European civilization traveled and dwelt and observed and thought and wrote before him— yet he has surpassed them all in the difficult art of recording and analyzing new impressions, of preserving them with the accuracy and brightness that only the yet-undiscovered art of color-photographyÂ�

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Fig. 4. Félix Régamey, cover of Emile Guimet, Promenades japonaises, vol. 2: Tokio-Nikko (Paris: G. Charpentier, 1880), reproduced with the permission of the Special Collections Library, Pennsylvania State University Libraries.

Fig. 5. Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait Dedicated to Paul Gauguin [↜渀屮Self-Portrait as a Bonze], 1888, Harvard Art Museum, Fogg Art Museum, Bequest of the Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906. 1951.65. David Mathews © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Fig. 6. Félix Régamey, Young Bonze in Shiba, 1876, from Emile Guimet, Promenades japonaises, vol. 2: Tokio-Nikko.

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might give, and of perfuming each scene with the strange exotic odors belonging to the original.”13 Hearn had Loti in mind when in 1890, following the publication of Madame Chrysanthème, he determined to write his own firsthand account of Japan. Hearn explained to his publisher in New York: In attempting a book upon a country so well trodden as Japan, I could not hope—nor would I consider it prudent attempting—to discover totally new things, but only to consider things in a totally new way . . . to create in the minds of readers, a vivid impression of living in Japan— not simply as an observer but as one taking part in the daily existence of the common people, and thinking with their thoughts.14

Once Hearn settled in Japan and became engaged in this act of projected identification with the Japanese, his admiration for Loti rapidly abated. Although he continued to praise Loti’s evocations of local atmosphere, Hearn complained, “Loti is unjust to the Japanese woman.” Concluding that Loti exemplified a French tendency to “think only with their nerves,—and too much with the pudic nerve especially,” Hearn complained of Loti’s recent books that “only the blasé nerves remained; and the poet became,—a little morbid modern affected Frenchman.”15Â� Hearn’s disillusionment anticipated broader critical responses to Loti. Although mention of Madame Chrysanthème can still evoke nostalgic pleasure for this classic of French literature, recent scholarship on this and Loti’s other popular novels often assesses them as tools of sexual and cultural exploitation. Loti himself summarized the plot of his famous novels set in Turkey, Tahiti, and Japan: Almost always there must be one woman, no matter where change has exiled you—it is so, isn’t it?—one young and feminine soul (whose envelope must have some little charm, since that is an essential part of the lure) to come to one’s aid in the great solitude—even, at times, in all honour, a little sister of passage, for whom one keeps, for some time after one leaves, soft thoughts and then, forgets. . . .16

This passage comes from Madame Prune, Loti’s 1905 sequel to Madame Chrysanthème, which recounts his return to Japan. The selfindulgent paradigm laid out here is actually gentler than the plot of Madame Chrysanthème, in which Loti concludes his affair by sailing

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off in a huff. Commentators have called Madame Chrysanthème a “novel of sexploitation,”17 “virulently anti-Japanese,” and “Loti’s racist text.”18 Specifically, critics charge that in Madame Chrysanthème and his other novels plotted around temporary marriage, “Loti used the formalities of matrimony to temper and charm hard legacies of colonial warfare, unequal treaties, exploited mistresses, and deadly epidemic diseases,” and his “novelsÂ�reflect (indeed inaugurate in French literature) some of the basest aspects of ‘orientalist’ colonial paternalism, with a contemptuous feminization of the subject.”19 Critics—sometimes these same critics—still find much to praise in the way Madame Chrysanthème balances assertions of colonial mastery with moments of “sheer incomprehension” in ways that reflect the ambiguities of imperialism.20 Loti’s defenders emphasize that the myths “crystallized” in Madame Chrysanthème predate the text, arguing that Loti reproduced these with “less aggressivity than one might have expected, and with more insight and delicacy than he is credited with.”21 For Loti’s admirers, the author himself is the first critical reader of his own text. The introduction to a recent edition of the French text describes Loti’s accomplishment as producing a novel “devoid of what conventionally characterizes a novel: invented characters, dramatic intrigue, sudden changes of fortune, etc.,” where “the only real drama, the only plot, in effect, is that of preconception, alterity, comprehension, discovery, rejection.” Acknowledging that what Loti describes is not the real Japan, this analysis shifts truth claims concerning what is comprehended, discovered, and rejected to how he describes it. Quoting Loti’s narration—“But absurd interruptions are absolutely to the taste of this country. . . . Nothing is more Japanese than to make these kinds of digressions without the least relevance”— this appreciation assures readers that “this decentered, disorienting book is, for its author, true to the image of Japan.”22 An even more generous analysis suggests that “Loti’s blatant pandering to his readers constituted a kind of self-sacrifice” in the face of demands for stereotypes he knew to be wrong; in this view, Loti betrayed his “deeper knowledge of Japan” as a way of “atoning for that greater act of misreading, that of Japan by japonisme.”23 Whether seen as an enthusiastic or an ambivalent agent of prejudice, however, Loti today is widely read as exemplifying what went wrong with Western approaches to the East.

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Rewriting Loti Readers’ ambivalent responses to Madame Chrysanthème are reflected in the adaptations and rewritings of the novel. As reviewers noted, Messager’s 1893 opera changed Loti’s plot for the stage. The librettists, Georges Hartmann and André Alexandre, emphasized the unfounded jealousy of the male protagonist (here called simply Pierre) and proposed a different conclusion. Where the novel ends with Loti sailing angrily away after he spies Chrysanthème cheerfully counting the money he left her, the opera ends with him reading a letter in which she confesses her love: You told me that I was no more to you than a doll, a mousmé . . . But if I could watch you leave with a smile on my lips I would like you to know when you are far away from meÂ� That in Japan too there are women who love . . . and who weep. (ellipses in original)

This affirmation allows Pierre, finally, to bond with his friend Yves in the opera’s upbeat finale, which proclaims that, after all, “women are women” everywhere.24 Subsequent rewritings also varied the conclusion. John Luther Long’s 1898 story has the character he called Butterfly start to commit suicide but change her mind; David Belasco’s 1900 play changed this ending to suicide, the plot retained by Puccini.Â� All of these resolutions mark a dissatisfaction with how Madame Chrysanthème ends with Loti baffled by Chrysanthème’s apparent indifference to his departure—this in contrast to his earlier novels, in which the native women Loti abandoned from Turkey to Tahiti manifested tragic sorrow.25 In the final paragraphs of Madame Chrysanthème, Loti, two or three days out from Nagasaki, opens his porthole and casts onto the waves of the Yellow Sea the lotus petals that are “the last living souvenirs of my summer at Nagasaki,” praying, with apparent irony, to the Japanese god his landlady daily worships, “O Ama-Térace-Omi-Kami, wash me clean from this little marriage of mine” (lv–lvi). Where Loti, in effect, concludes by giving up on understanding Chrysanthème, the revisionists to a man (and they were all men) assert a will-to-know over the female character, a knowledge that, in its most famous version as Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, insists upon her death.26 Régamey’s rewriting of Loti’s Madame Chrysanthème reworks much more than the conclusion, although The Pink Notebook of Madame

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Chrysanthème was the first revision to invoke the plot of attempted suicide. Régamey’s story made its first appearance in October of 1893, when he oversaw the publication of a special issue of the Parisian literary journal La Plume dedicated to the subject of “L’Art et la femme au Japon” (Art and woman in Japan). Almost all of the elements of the 1894 book translated here made their first appearance in this issue of La Plume. The epigraph, from the British journalist Henry Norman, graced the magazine’s cover, along with Régamey’s witty illustration showing a kimonoed beauty reading on a scroll the words “Numéro Exceptionnel” (Special Issue), which became the book’s title page (fig. 7).27 Régamey’s essay on “The Japanese Soul” from La Plume, augmented with some pointed opening remarks about Loti, became the preface to the book (fig. 8). Régamey’s The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème made its first appearance as the conclusion of this special issue. It is significant that Régamey’s rewriting of Madame Chrysanthème originated in a literary magazine, where it was contextualized among contributions from a range of French and British Japanophiles, or as they were called in French, “Japonistes.” Philippe Burty, who had coined the term “Japonisme” as the title for an influential series of articles on Japanese culture that he published in 1872–1873, was posthumously represented in this issue of La Plume by an abridged version of his 1875 essay about “Ko Mati,” the preeminent female poet of Japanese history.28 Supplementing this stay-at-home forefather of Japanese studies, Régamey summoned for his special issue writers with experience in Japan. Théodore Duret, an art critic who, like Régamey, had explored Japan in the 1870s, contributed an essay on Japanese art. Jules Adam, the senior interpreter for the French delegation in Tokyo, wrote a survey of Japanese literature. Henri Degron, whose rather purple prose poem “Triomphale pour l’Empire du Soleil” is doubly dedicated to “my native land” and to “Félix Régamey,”Â� had spent two decades as the French postmaster in Yokohama, where his energetic sideline in native flora earned him two awards for introducing Japanese plants to France.29 In addition to these essays, Régamey included two poems by Henri de Riberolles, who had been a law professor in Japan. Régamey also translated for his special issue articles on contemporary Japanese sexual mores by Henry Norman and Edwin Arnold, two English writers who had lived in—and authored books about—Japan.30 At first glance, Régamey’s issue of La Plume might seem a hodge-

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Fig. 7. Félix Régamey, cover of La Plume, 15 October 1893.Â�

Fig. 8. Félix Régamey, first page of La Plume, 15 October 1893.

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podgeÂ� of Japoniste clichés. But the texts and images it assembled combine to reinforce two points passionately argued by Régamey. The first is that Japan has an ancient and venerable artistic and cultural tradition in which women play an important role. The second is that claims to the contrary are perpetuated by the wrong kind of visitor. This critique struck at the heart of Madame Chrysanthème’s appeal, which rested on the conflation of the narrator and the author as “Pierre Loti,” the pen name of Louis Marie Julien Viaud. The novels issued under the name Pierre Loti were authorized by Viaud’s real-life status as a naval officer whose career took him to the exotic locales where the novels were set. As one of Loti’s early reviewers put it, “Madame Chrysanthème is not a novel, it is a page of memories.”31 The consensus of scholars and long-term residents of Japan assembled by Régamey in La Plume turned the true-to-life appeal of Viaud/ Loti’s novel back on itself, proposing Madame Chrysanthème as the record of an ill-educated and vulgar sailor who, on a short stay, took disgruntled advantage of a port city that had been ruined by foreigners like him. Régamey was not the first Japanophile to think of critiquing Loti by rewriting Madame Chrysanthème from the woman’s perspective. In a series of articles first published in Scribner’s in 1890–1891, EdwinÂ� Arnold extolled Japan in contrast to Loti’s “brilliantly offensive book,” which seems “to take Japan as a bright and fascinating freak of geography and ethnology: too petit, grotesque, minuscule, manière to love.” Defending the “temporary alliances” in which “the Japanese mistress generally shows herself as gentle, as attached, as faithful as if she were mated for life,” Arnold opined: Even by the light of M[onsieur] Pierre Loti’s glittering egotism, the most casual reader may perceive how infinitely superior, morally and socially, O Kiku San was to her French satirist; and if only she could write a book in the same language entitled, “M[onsieur] Loti” by Madame Chrysanthème, it would be seen what a poor creature the cultured French naval officer and flâneur of the boulevards must appear beside the gentle-hearted Asiatic girl, whose immortalities belonged to Confucianism, and her virtues to herself.32

Taking up Arnold’s idea, Régamey’s version of Loti’s famous story emphasizes the author’s boorishness. Chrysanthème, in Régamey’s telling, confides to her journal: “He takes notes sometimes in a little

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notebook, but he never reads, at least I have never seen him with a book in his hands, not even a newspaper. And I who love reading so much can indulge in it only when he is not here.” The fact that Loti (again, in Régamey’s telling) cannot imagine that the Japanese “wife” he repeatedly assumes is empty-headed is actually well read and conceals her erudition to please him is paradigmatic of Régamey’s view of Loti’s failure to perceive the virtues of Japan. Régamey’s Chrysanthème concludes this diary entry with the regretful observation “He seems insensitive to the sight of the most charming things.” Félix Régamey and Japonisme Régamey’s antagonism toward Loti and his version of Japan reflects his background among the Parisian Japonistes. Born in 1844 into the Paris art world, Félix Régamey was the middle son of Guillaume Régamey, the inventor of a color-lithographic process often used to reproduce works of art.33 Following in his father’s footsteps, Félix was trained in—and then taught—drawing. Both his brothers were also painter-illustrators, the elder specializing in military subjects, the younger in sporting scenes. Notwithstanding their commercial careers, all three of the Régamey brothers exhibited their paintings in the official salons. His younger brother, Frédéric, cofounded a journal of artistic prints, Paris à l’eau-forte (Paris in etchings), a copy of which Félix was delighted to discover in Yokohama on his second day in Japan.34 Prints by Félix and his older brother, Guillaume, were sought after by Van Gogh, who wrote in 1883: “I have been absorbed these days in a drawing by Régamey, of a diamond mine; at first sight, no different from any of those superficial drawings which fill the magazines—one would just pass over it; but if one looks at it a little longer, it becomes so beautiful and so intriguing that one is quite fascinated by it. Régamey is clever—this reproduction is by Félix, who often reproduces the Japanese things.”35 Régamey’s position in the Paris art world afforded him early entry to circles of Japonistes. Exactly how early is hard to say, for competitive claims to precocious interest in Japanese aesthetics became a standard feature in the Japonistes’ biographies. The collector brothers Edmond and Jules de Goncourt as well as Régamey’s fellow illustrator Félix Bracquemond, whose interest in Japanese art is first documented to 1861–1862, later antedated their appreciation of Japanese art to the 1850s.36 Régamey himself claimed familiarity with Japanese

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prints by 1863, but his obituary in the 1907 Bulletin de la Société Franco-Japonaise de Paris expands a bit—both temporally and thematically—upon this claim, asserting that fifteen years before he realized his dream of traveling to Japan in 1876, “the albums of Hokusai, the landscapes of Hiroshige, the various kakemonos [hanging scrolls] imported to Paris had shown him a picturesque and attractive land peopled by active and ingenious inhabitants and, moreover, what was naturally most seductive for him, great draftsmen.”37 No documentary evidence affirms Régamey’s place in this very first wave of Japonistes in the early 1860s, but by 1868 Félix was collaborating with his father to illustrate one of the movement’s foundational documents, a booklet by Philippe Burty, Les Emaux cloisonnés anciens et modernes (Cloisonné enamels ancient and modern), published as advertising by a Paris jeweler.38 Despite its unprepossessing title and frank hucksterism—the virtues of each of the ancient forms of enamel described turn out always to be inherent also in contemporary products for sale at Chez Martz—Burty was a central figure in the history of Japonisme, and this early booklet influentially upheld Japanese prints not just as useful design sources for French enamelers,Â�but as a prime mode of access to Japan: Better than voyagers’ accounts, these albums, produced almost entirely at workshops in Yeddo [Edo, now Tokyo], have revealed to us a thousand secrets about the nature, the customs, the people, the arts of this curious country, this active race so ingenious and refined. . . . The Japanese thought victoriously to hide the secret of their political and social life from Western barbarians. But the pages of their albums of daily life, of their fairy tales, of their illustrated novels reveal to us everything that they fear and everything that they love, everything that they do and everything that they think.39

Burty’s focus on images as the key to Japanese culture could not fail to interest Régamey, the young printmaker. His lively incidental illustrations to Burty’s text clearly followed the author’s advice to use Japanese prints as models (fig. 9). Over the subsequent tumultuous few years, Régamey continued to base illustrations on Japanese prints and photographs, although these were far from his only output. While fighting in the guerilla forces attempting to defend Paris in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, Régamey dispatched sketches over enemy lines by balloon. TransmittedÂ�

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Fig. 9. Félix Régamey, illustrations in Philippe Burty, Les Emaux cloisonnés anciens et modernes (Paris: printed for Chez Martz jewellers by J. Claye, n.d. [1868]).

to his brother in London, these were published as war reportage by the Illustrated London News.40 After Paris fell to the Prussians, Régamey joined his brother in England, where he continued to produce imagery for the Illustrated London News. In 1873 Régamey traveled to New York, where he sold illustrations to papers including Harper’s Weekly, and in 1874 he was brought to Chicago to reestablish a drawing academy after the Chicago Fire. By 1875 he was living in Boston, where he sketched a portrait of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and had his own portrait painted by William Morris Hunt. Despite his exile from France for what he later complained were “three years of struggle in the American free-for-all,” Régamey retained his contacts among the Parisian Japonistes.41 Chromolithographs based on Régamey’s renderings of Japanese prints accompanied the first appearance of Burty’s article on the poet “Ko Mati” in 1875.42 In 1876, at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Régamey met with an old Paris acquaintance, Emile Guimet, a wealthy collector whose concern for the moral well-being of the workers in his factories had led him to a study of comparative religions (his collection of religious objects eventually became the basis of the Musée Guimet,

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France’s national museum of Asian art). Guimet, who was westward bound on a government-sponsored mission to study the religions of the East, invited Régamey to accompany him as an illustrator, offering to pay all expenses in exchange for Régamey’s visual documentation of his travels: “Dare to be my companion, and we will spend ten months that will enlighten the rest of our life,” Guimet urged.43 This trip bonded Guimet and Régamey in a quasi-brotherly intimacy that lasted long after their return to France, where they often lectured together on their Japanese travels in tour-de-force performances in which Régamey rapidly illustrated Guimet’s comments on vast sheets of paper.44 Régamey deeply respected Guimet’s scholarly investigations into Buddhism and Shinto, while Guimet’s account of their expedition in Promenades japonaises repeatedly attests to his affection for Régamey, whose copious illustrations in this two-volume work ensured his lifelong identification with Japan. Régamey and Loti in Japan Régamey’s background stands in sharp contrast to that of the author of Madame Chrysanthème. Louis MarieÂ� Julien Viaud, a career military officer from a once-affluent provincial family, was frankly nostalgic for old social hierarchies and proud to profess both his contempt for Paris literary circles and his schoolboy crush on the famously conservative Empress Eugénie, who presented the sabers to his class of graduating officers at the naval academy.45 Régamey, in contrast, was a part of the Paris art world, and his political sympathies were manifest in his contributions to the anti-imperial magazine La Rue (The street), which was suppressed by the government of Napoleon III in 1868; Régamey is also credited with founding two short-lived republican journals during the turbulent years of the Franco-Prussian war: Le Salut public (The public welfare) and République à outrance (Republic all the way), and he authored a pamphlet honoring the antiroyalist politician Léon Gambetta in 1884.46 While the left-leaning Régamey experienced France in confusion and defeat, the conservative Viaud was on navy ships roaming waters from the North Sea to the Pacific Ocean—“a true imperialist,” as one scholar puts it, “he served on and commanded French warships, bombarded local populations, supported executions of resisters, and showed the flag from North Africa to East Asia.”47 And where the novels and short stories that described Pierre Loti living and loving from Turkey to Tahiti made their

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author so famous that he adopted his character’s name, the most that can be said for Régamey’s reputation is that his reportorial art earned him the respect of other artists and cosmopolitan specialists. When Loti approached Japan, it was, therefore, with both the authority of a naval officer and the blasé self-confidence of an international celebrity with experience of other Oriental ports of call. Two years before arriving in Japan, Loti wrote of Asia, “My first interest born of curiosity having passed, I will never love this land or any creature of this sad yellow race.”48 His narration in Madame Chrysanthème stresses that he came to Nagasaki only because his ship needed “to undergo repairs rendered necessary by the long blockade of Formosa” (xxiii). Régamey, in contrast, was so interested in Japanese culture that, on the boat from San Francisco, he convinced Soïchiro Matsumoto,Â� a young Japanese engineer returning from his studies in America, to translate with him an illustrated Japanese story. When, after subsequent revisions, Régamey in 1882 published his own illustrated edition of Okoma—a book that has been cited as the first translation of a major work of Japanese literature into French—as a “Japanese novel,” he dedicated it to his Japanese collaborators, starting with Matsumoto and ending with the translators who helped him and Guimet to understand “the mysterious beauties, the penetrating charm, the austere ethic of Buddhism.”49 Régamey, in short, came to Japan full of interest and grateful for his position assisting a scholar who challenged Catholic authorities at home and missionaries abroad with his belief that “to truly appreciate ancient or distant civilizations . . . one must set aside one’s own beliefs, cast off received ideas given by one’s education and background. In order to really grasp the doctrine of Confucius, it is good to take on the spirit of a Chinese scholar, in order to understand the Buddha one must make oneself a Buddhist soul.”50 Régamey’s exposure to Japanese religious doctrines and aesthetics is manifest in his rapturous description in the preface of The Pink Notebook of the Buddhist temples with their dazzling decorations, sumptuous dwellings of this most tolerant of religions, where the priests, who were great artists, have, inside and out and from foundation to roofline, gathered gold and silk, bronze, red and black lacquer, enamels and paintings, carved the wood to sculpt capitals that are integral to the heavy pillars they surmount, and all of this so dignified as to be compared with our most beautiful cathedrals!

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Régamey’s attitude contrasts with Loti’s condescending descriptions of monks and temples and the ignorant indifference to Japanese religion exemplified by his dismissive allusions to Chrysanthème’s “gilded idol . . . unknown and incomprehensible.”51 In The Pink Notebook, Chrysanthème identifies this statue, “a cherished relic that came to me from my grandparents,” as an image of Benten and explains: “This is the good goddess of the sea, protector of lovers; she is in her rightful place here and is still more precious to me today. I will pray ceaselessly for her to protect and inspire me.” Loti parades his ignorance of Japanese religion, asserting it as a general principle: “In the religious amusements of this people it is not possible for us to penetrate the mysteriously hidden meaning of things . . . all that tradition and atavism have jumbled together in the Japanese brain, proceed from sources utterly dark and unknown to us; even the oldest records fail to explain them to us in anything but a superficial and cursory manner, simply because we have absolutely nothing in common with this people” (xxxiv). This displacement of the Frenchman’s condescending ignorance to the status of a fact about the Japanese—a fact that is then used to justify the ignorance and the condescension— particularly angered Régamey, for whom immersion in Japanese religions seems to have animated a sense of sacrilege at Loti’s tale. In his preface, Régamey—who insists his reaction to Loti is shared by “all those who appreciate beauty in whatever latitude they find it” as well as “devotees of Japan”—compares his feelings to “what a good Christian would feel upon reading an ‘interview’ with God the father.” Régamey condemns both Loti’s tendency to draw from clichéd imagery (God as “an old gentleman with a white beard . . . surrounded by chubby-cheeked cherubim”) and his scurrilous emphasis on “certain particularities that he delighted in vulgarizing.” If Régamey and Viaud set out from different positions in French society, the Japan they approached was different, too. Between August of 1876, when Guimet and Régamey arrived for nine weeks of travel, and July of 1885, when Viaud arrived for just over a month in Nagasaki, Japan experienced enormous change. In 1876 Japan was just beginning the period of rapid Westernization associated with the Meiji era. Although the Meiji government technically dated from the accession of the young Emperor Mutsuhito in 1868, the first years of his administration were occupied with consolidating his political power against domestic challengers. The feudal powers of regional princes and their armies of samurai were abolished in 1871, a history

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emphasizedÂ�by Régamey, who challenged Loti’s clichés about the timelessness of Japan by giving Chrysanthème a backstory: “We were once richer. After the revolution, my father, who was a high Samouraï, had to leave the service of his lord, Prince Satzouma; a mysterious sadness seized his spirit; he no long cared at all for his struggling house and failing fortune, and soon he died, consumed by the grief of seeing foreigners seize his whole country.” The twinned use of the verb emparer (to seize) here not only recognizes the volatility of recent Japanese history, but positions his characters as symbols of Japan: the venerable old order withering away under the onslaught of Westernization, with Chrysanthème as the emblem of the new Japan, in Régamey’s view, naïvely enthralled with a West that does not have her best interests at heart. Julien Viaud’s presence in Japan in 1885 was part of this history of rapid Westernization. Intelligently triangulating interest in Japan among Western powers, the Japanese assigned different aspects of military, industrial, and academic development to advisers from different European nations and the United States. Nagasaki—for centuries atypical due to its status as Japan’s primary military port— developed a modern dry-dock during the Meiji era. Thus it was that a French naval officer could find himself in Nagasaki for a few weeks in 1885 while his ship underwent repairs. Although Viaud’s six weeks—from 8 July to 12 August—in Nagasaki double to almost eighty days in Loti’s novel, the outline of Madame Chrysanthème finds documentary basis in his journal and letters. To a naval colleague he wrote lightheartedly, “Last week I married, for one month renewable, before the Japanese authorities, a certain OkanéSan. . . . You have already seen her doll-like figure on every fan.”52 The fusion of Viaud with Loti is especially striking in his letters to Juliette Adam, the publisher who sponsored him in the Parisian literary circles he claimed to despise. He signed his letters to the woman who described herself as his “intellectual mother” using his pen name: “Your son, Loti.” From Japan he told Adam, “I was married last week before the authorities of this country, before my brother Yves and two assembled families, to a young girl of seventeen. Her name is OkanéSan. In the evening there was a parade with lanterns and a gala tea. This valid marriage may be extended by the agreement of both parties.” Assuring Adam that “Okané-San is clothed just like those mincing women on the walls of your oriental room,” Loti concluded this letter, “Never would I have the courage to write a study of Japan; it

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annoys me too much.”53 The mix of condescending jocularity and eroticized Japonisme in these letters anticipates both the tone and the plot of Madame Chrysanthème, while Loti’s chosen correspondents encapsulate the dynamic that made him famous: masculine bonding among Frenchmen abroad performed for a largely female novel-reading public (“it’s women who buy me,” wrote Loti, fretting that Rossi’s illustrations for Madame Chrysanthème, which he thought made him look ugly, would decrease his sales).54 Régamey’s itinerary and reportage were very different. Between their arrival on 26 August 1876 and their departure for China on 3 November, Régamey and Guimet used their diplomatic visas to travel far beyond the port cities to which foreigners were usually restricted, exploring Buddhist and Shinto temples in Kamakura, Tokyo, Nikko, and along the old Tokaido road between Tokyo and Kyoto. Working with carefully chosen translators, Guimet interviewed priests and monks, who welcomed the attention of distinguished Europeans at a time when their own government’s program of rapid Westernization was wreaking havoc with indigenous religious institutions. Régamey’s sketches record Guimet’s interviews, religious ceremonies that were performed for the benefit of the researchers, and scenes that caught his eye on their travels. On their return to France, these sketches became the basis for forty oil paintings documenting the voyage (fig. 10) as well as for Régamey’s illustrations in articles and books about Japan. From the beginning, Régamey was thrilled with Japan. Guimet recalled him on his first day in Japan so awestruck that he left his pencil “resting in his pocket, not knowing by what end to seize this place of harmony and fantasy.”55 Régamey’s first letter to his brother from Japan begins: “I write to you from the land of dreams—what if I were to tell you that everything we knew of it from pictures fell far short of the reality?!! It is a perpetual enchantment—the nude in all its splendor, the clothes as beautiful as the ancient Greeks but with an additional variety of cut and color. The landscape, marvelous, in fact, everything. . . . It is no more or less than the Golden Age.”56 He wrote similarly enthusiastic letters to his father describing “the kind of intoxication of obsession” he felt in Japan and regretting that he had to take time to sleep.57 His enthusiasm would last a lifetime. The American illustrator Helen Hyde, who worked with Régamey in Paris in the early 1890s, recalled: “To him there was no art except Japanese art, no women except Japanese women, and no life except Japanese life.”58

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Fig. 10. Félix Régamey, Emile Guimet in Front of a Buddhist with Kondo as Translator, ca. 1876–1877, Musée des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet, Paris. Photograph courtesy of Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource/NY.

Anticipating the dynamic of Régamey’s Pink Notebook, Guimet’s text in Promenades japonaises repeatedly contrasts the interested enthusiasm he shared with his illustrator companion with the dismissive attitudes toward Japanese culture they encountered among the European businessmen, diplomats, journalists, and missionaries they met in Japan. In a chapter titled “Ce qui prouve que tout le monde ne porte pas les memes lunettes” (That which proves that everyone is not wearing the same spectacles), an unnamed Frenchman long resident

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in Japan assures them that nothing can be learned about Japanese religion and that Japan is bereft of artistic beauty.59 Within just three days of his arrival in Japan, Régamey was envisioning in his journal a publication of Japan in two parts, “divided thus: 1st part—the good Japanese (as many volumes as desired). 2nd part—the bad Japanese (one or two pages of European sailors on horseback, European fashions, smoke, a few odors of old grease and the like, flavorless fruits, and that would be all).”60 A decade and a half later, The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème realized the intention Régamey had confided to his journal (leaving out his complaints about the fruit and the smells). The Pink Notebook begins with European sailors terrifying pedestrians as they gallop recklessly on rented horses. What is striking about this opening episode—the only one in The Pink Notebook not derived from Loti’s novel—is Régamey’s imaginative projection of his own experience at the start of his time in Japan onto the character of a Japanese girl. It is this act of projective identification, in which a nineteenth-century Frenchman imagines his narrative voice as that of a Japanese girl, that makes The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème such a fascinatingÂ�—and problematicÂ�—text. The Novel and the Notebook “Ôtez moi ces magots!” This is the lively opening phrase Régamey chose—and put in the mouth of Louis XIV—when he revised his article on “The Japanese Soul” to serve as the preface for his Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème as a stand-alone publication.61 I have translated this as “Remove this monkey business!” to retain the associations of magots, the word for pigmy-ape that by the nineteenth century had expanded to refer to any manner of grotesque statuette. Régamey’s vocabulary had a second resonance, however, for it echoes Loti’s dedication that opens Madame Chrysanthème, in which Loti asks his dedicatee, the Duchesse de Richelieu, to accept his book “with the same indulgent smile, and without looking in it for any good or evil moral—as you would receive a curious vase, an ivory magot, or some kind of preposterous trinket brought for you from this astonishing fatherland of all preposterousness.” From the start, then, the battle lines were drawn, and Régamey wasted no time in his preface lambasting Loti and his French enthusiasts for mistreating Japan. In contrast, Régamey upholds the

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“numerousÂ�and notable works” of English travelers to Japan, passages from which he transcribes in lengthy footnotes. Like the episode of the galloping sailors, Régamey’s admiration for the English also reflects his experience in Japan, where, early in their stay, he and Guimet were guided on their first trip outside the foreigners’ enclave of Yokohama by Charles Wirgman, a British expatriate who had lived in Japan since 1861 and married a Japanese wife. Like Régamey, Wirgman was an illustrator, a fellow contributorÂ� to the Illustrated London News, although he is now best remembered as the founder of a Japanese edition of the illustrated humor magazine Punch, which became so much a part of Japanese life that its title became the Japanese term ponchi-e, meaning cartoon caricatures. Wirgman was an important link between Japanese indigenous and expatriate communities. As the business partner of the Yokahama photographer Felix Beato, Wirgman wrote many of the captions that accompanied Beato’s photographs, which, as they circulated among tourists and in magazines, were instrumental in creating Western perceptions of Japan; at the same time, Wirgman instructed a number of aspiring Japanese artists in Western painting techniques.62 Although by the 1890s Régamey—along with his Japoniste colleagues—would condemn Japanese efforts to adopt Western painting styles, he and Guimet were favorably impressed by their English guide.63 Just as Régamey drew on his own experience of “European sailors on horseback” to illustrate the wrong kind of foreigners in Japan, his admiration for English expatriates makes its presence felt in the first entry of The Pink Notebook in the reference to the mysterious Englishman, a friend of Chrysanthème’s father, who “wrote and sketched a lot” and offered tastes of “jams brought from his own country.” The tragedy for young Chrysanthème, in Régamey’s telling, is that, now lacking a father’s guidance concerning what foreign influences to accept, she chooses badly in falling for a French sailor. In this, Chrysanthème stands for Japan, as Régamey describes it in his preface, forsaking old wisdoms as it hurtles to embrace Westernization. Speaking through Chrysanthème in a mood of retrospectionÂ� as she dedicates her story, Régamey has her lament, “How could that stranger claim the empire of my soul, which he never seemed to have the curiosity to penetrate and which he never succeeded in understanding?” Believing himself to be the kind of foreigner who did have the curiosity to penetrate the Japanese empire and to understand its soul—his article in La Plume was titled “The Japanese Soul”—

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Régamey set out to rebut Loti’s account of Japan and its women point by point. Régamey’s story marches in counterpoint to Loti’s beginning with the first entry. Where Loti imagines himself spying unseen on a party in the room next door at the tea house called the Garden of Flowers, Chrysanthème, in Régamey’s telling, is smitten by seeing, in the next room, the “agitated” naval officer, whose eyes “remained locked on mine.” This paradigm, which shifts Loti from the seer to the seen, marks Chrysanthème’s second diary entry as well. Here, herself unseen, she records a sight of Loti that challenges his self-perception as “brother” to his friend Yves. From Chrysanthème’s perspective, Yves, the sailor walking with the officer, listens “deferentially” as Loti talks, looking all the while unconvinced. Shifting the perspective from Loti to Chrysantheme, Régamey emphasizes Loti’s blindness to the truth of his Japanese wife—and by extension Japan. Pierre, in Loti’s rendition, thinks: “What thoughts can be running through that little brain? My knowledge of her language is still too restricted to enable me to find out. Moreover, it is a hundred to one that she has no thoughts whatever. And even if she had, what do I care?” (vii). In Régamey’s telling, Chrysanthème not only thinks constantly about her situation, but reads historical novels. Where Loti’s Pierre, once he has Chrysanthème, loses all interest in studying Japanese, Régamey’s heroine tries to study French in order to understand Pierre: “I have asked for a dictionary, which I await; perhaps he would love me more if I could speak to him and understand him. I would like to learn French secretly in order to surprise him; the secret of my studies would be hard to keep, but no matter! I am dying to try.” Chrysanthème’s love for Pierre, however, prevents her from pursuing the insight she had when she first spied him on the footpath. The capacity for insight into Loti shifts, after the second diary entry, from Chrysanthème—the more she idealizes Pierre, the more she is baffled by him—to the reader familiar with Loti’s famous tale. And our view is not flattering. On July 14, which both authors note is the French national holiday, Loti has Chrysanthème “affecting fatigue” (xi), while Régamey has her trying to conceal her exhaustion. When, in the competing diary entries for August 25, Loti, out of jealousy, tempts Chrysanthème to sleep next to his friend Yves and then mocks her dignified refusal, in Régamey’s account she assumes he has simply made a mistake and moves to fix it. Régamey’s telling of this episode ends with the striking image of Chrysanthème, still struggling

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to learn French so she can know her lover better, copying onto a fan, without understanding the meaning of the words, Loti’s condescending writerly flourish, which sums up his version of events by comparing the Japanese to monkeys. The phrase she copies—“How eternally beautiful, even in Japan, are mornings in the country and mornings in life!”64—introduces Loti’s scathing remarks, which begin with his admiration for the beauty of Japanese children and then immediately sour into “But how is it that their charm vanishes so rapidly and is so quickly replaced by the elderly grimace, the smiling ugliness, the monkeyish face?” (xxxiv). By choosing a phrase that expresses an initial recognition of beauty that Loti turns to ugliness and imagining its implicit anti-Japanese sentiment written delicately on a fan by an earnest Japanese woman, Régamey creates a powerful image of the corrupting effects of imperialism. Although Chrysanthème, in Régamey’s telling, ignores or forgives Pierre’s imperialist arrogance, older Japanese are offended but remain too polite to confront him. Where in Loti’s narration Pierre complains about the police who regulate his domestic arrangements—“under the obsequious amiability of this people, there lurks a secret hatred towards us Europeans”—and takes pleasure in humiliating them so that his landlord “will not be disturbed again” (xxx), in Régamey’s version, the landlord whispers to Chrysanthème: “Is there reason to be so angry, and everywhere in the world shouldn’t authority be respected? In Japan they are so kind to foreigners. They do everything they want and are not bothered by anyone.” Chrysanthème’s fundamental error is that her love for Pierre leads her to attribute to him her own perspective, blinding her to the evidence that he neither shares her values nor acts in her interest. Thus Chrysanthème believes Pierre is upset by the spectacle of European and American sailors’ public drunkenness when Loti’s narration of the same day takes the drunken sailors in stride but emphasizes Yves’ embarrassment at the importuning of the sailors by Japanese prostitutes, “mere babies, so young, so tiny, already so brazen and shameless” (xi), never intimating that this spectacle, too, might reflect an aspect of foreign incursion into Japan. It is on these issues of sex and love that Loti’s and Régamey’s versions of the story of Chrysanthème and her sailor differ most profoundly. Loti sees sex everywhere he looks in Japan. He repeatedly invokes his elderly landlady’s reputation as a former woman of easy virtue, establishing her as the model that, if Chrysanthème has not followed already, she soon will. As Régamey tells it, in contrast, the too-trusting

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Chrysanthème is motivated only by love. This difference culminates in their final scene. In Loti’s version, sneaking in on Chrysanthème, Pierre finds her greedily testing the value of the silver coins he left her “with the competent dexterity of an old money-changer” while singing a “little pensive bird-like song which I daresay she improvises as she goes along” (lii). In Régamey’s telling, to distract herself from her sorrow, Chrysanthème sings “the sad song of the moneylender. . . . This song, which is well known in Japan, shows how all crimes come from greediness and that money is the worst thing in the world.” Loti’s version justifies the narrator’s contempt for Chrysanthème and thus for Japan. For Régamey, the sensitive and faithful Chrysanthème’s awakening to Loti’s cruelty leads her to attempt suicide. The Afterlife of The Pink Notebook “As for me, what I take and what I keep is this exquisite little Pink Notebook that smells so lovely although it is the pink notebook of Chrysanthème, a flower with no perfume.” Despite that encomium from Louis Détang of the magazine République française, Régamey’s rewriting of Loti did not find a large audience in its own day.65 By 1907, when Régamey died, Louis-Emile Bertin, president of the Société Franco-Japonaise, cited the Pink Notebook as “charming pages, too little known,” that demonstrated their author’s “penetration as observer and critic.”66 Although still little known, the Pink Notebook more recently has attracted passing scholarly notice. Jan Hokenson calls the Pink Notebook “a lively and often charming tour de force,” while Bruno Vercier invokes it as a “brilliant exercise in rewriting,” in which “Régamey gives voice to the Other.”67 Ultimately Vercier and other recent readers have been more ambivalent, however. Matt K. Matsuda refers to “the more generous Régamey, who makes Chrysanthème a real ‘woman’ at last—that is a creature of pained and strained sensibilities, defined by the delicacy of her sentiment, ruled by the desire to let another know of her capacity for romantic love.”68 The quotation marks around “woman,” however, hint at a critique directly articulated by Akane Kawakami, who complains: “Régamey, in his well-intentioned attempt to give us Chrysanthème’s ‘side of the story,’ was only able to give her the voice of a nineteenth-century French heroine, and in doing so perhaps suffocated her otherness even more effectively than Loti’s frustrated narrative did.”69 For Vercier, Loti’s great defender, Régamey’s approach ends up justifying the original

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Madame Chrysanthème. “Is this Butterfly, gifted with all her merits, more ‘true’ than Chrysanthème?” he asks. Of The Pink Notebook, Vercier argues, “This terribly European sentimentality, this pastiche which is not one, has at least the merit of justifying a contrario Loti’s position, that of frank subjectivity,” allowing him to conclude that it is a “naïve pretension to want to speak the truth of the Other.”70 Vercier’s conclusion is surely correct. If what we seek is an authentic voice of Japanese woman circa 1890, such a thing—and it could never have been simply one thing in any case—will not be provided by an itinerant French illustrator. It is easy enough to see how, despite his antagonism toward Loti, Régamey too reproduced stereotypes of docile and subservient Japanese womanhood that were a staple of French Japonisme and characterized, as well, the Anglophones Régamey admired.71 These stereotypes mark the passage from Henry Norman’s 1891 The Real Japan that Régamey chose for his epigraph as well as Edwin Arnold’s essay on “Love and Marriage,” which Régamey translated for his special issue of La Plume.72 By the time we read the last lines of Henri de Riberolles’ poem “The Mousmé’s Sonnet,” which appeared in Régamey’s issue of La Plume—“She smokes, she drinks her tea. / Her naïve stupidity / has the grace of innocence”—we might fairly conclude that, with friends like the Japonistes, nineteenth-century Japanese women did not need enemies.73 But The Pink Notebook is not, despite Vercier’s witty put-down, a “pastiche which is not one.”74 It is a pastiche that very much knows itself to be one. The most remarkable part of Régamey’s remarkable text is undoubtedly the epilogue, where the suicide plot favored by later, more famous, revisions of Loti is briefly invoked, if only in order to be revoked. In saving Chrysanthème, the fictional character, however, Régamey reveals her to be just that: not an actual Japanese woman but a European text. Here a cascade of excerpts and paraphrases apparently culled from Madame Chrysanthème—what Régamey calls “this astounding collection of banalities, solecisms, truisms, nonsense, and platitudes”—simultaneously condemns Loti’s text, both as the truth of Japan and as good literature, and emphasizes the parodic strategies of quotation and allusion that created The Pink Notebook. Knowing itself to be text, The Pink Notebook suggests that, rather than looking to either Loti’s or Régamey’s tales for insight into Japanese women, these stories may be best interrogated for their insights into the dynamics of Japonisme among nineteenth-century European men and their implications for Western literature.

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Japan as/in Paris To take up the question of what these antagonistic versions of Madame Chrysanthème reveal about the Japonistes in their latenineteenth-century French context, the most striking answer may be Japonisme’s relatively narrow range. Two pictures demonstrate how much Régamey and Loti had in common. Luigi Rossi’s illustration of Madame Chrysanthème from the title page of the popular 1888 illustrated edition of Loti’s tale could be the double of Régamey’s frontispiece for his Pink Notebook (figs. 11, 12). Although Régamey’s text clearly intends to rebuke Loti, his imagined vision of Chrysanthème is nearly identical to that Rossi extrapolated from Loti’s words, down to the bowlike mouth that exemplifies Loti’s conflation of the Japanese term mousmé with the French moue (pout) and frimousse (a pretty face). Of mousmé, Loti wrote, “It is one of the prettiest in the Nipponese language; it seems that this word has a bit of moue in it (the nice, funny little pout that the girls make) and above all of frimousse (a pretty scrunched up face like theirs).”75 In both images, the setting presents Chrysanthème as natural, while her pose and costume assert a decorative docility authorized by tradition. She is, in short, the fin-de-siècle ideal of Japanese woman and of Japan itself that was consistently figured in the West—by Westerners and the Japanese alike—as a kimono-clad female.76 The differences between Loti and Régamey concern not so much their perceptions of Japan and its women as their own relationship to that perception. As Matsuda perceptively notes, both Loti and Régamey used Chrysanthème “metonymically to define their assessments of Japanese civilization.” Loti’s perception of Chrysanthème and of Japan was that of the imperialist, free to pick and choose among subordinate women and cultures. For Loti, Chrysanthème was, in Matsuda’s words, “a superficially splendid, marginally charming woman of no great importance. Through her, Japan was small and precious, an amusing trifle of a country.” In contrast, for Régamey, who had lived through the Prussian siege of Paris, these same qualities of smallness and fragility aroused an alternative identification with the colonized. From this perspective, Japan was “a refined civilization like France violated and tragically shattered by barbaric invaders” and now “clinging . . . to its refinement and dignity in an age of social and political shocks.”77 These two perceptions—not of Japan but of France—define

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Fig. 11. Luigi Rossi, title page illustration in Pierre Loti, Madame Chrysanthème, 1888.

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Fig. 12. Félix Régamey, frontispiece, Le Cahier Rose de Madame Chrysanthème (Paris: Bibliothèque Artistique et Littéraire, 1894).

important,Â� but often overlooked, differences within the politics of Japonisme through the 1880s and into the 1890s. For some Japonistes, a taste for Japan went hand in hand with conservative politics nostalgic for old-fashioned French absolutism. Exemplary of this strand were the Goncourt brothers, Edmond and Jules, two of the first and most prominent French collectors of Japanese art. Both Loti and Régamey visited their much-publicized house,

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which blended eighteenth-century drawings, rococo furniture, and displays of Japanese textiles, porcelains, bronzes, and ivories.78 The Goncourts’ journals, published serially by Edmond starting in 1886, titillated readers with gossip about the Parisian elite and outbursts of nostalgia for the aristocratic manners of the eighteenth century. This nostalgic disdain for the present was calculated to attract attention and continues to provoke. Debora Silverman’s influential study of French design opens by condemning the Goncourts: “To them the French Revolution was the first enemy, nineteenth-century democratic individualism the second. . . . Scorning the lower classes as vile animals and the bourgeois as vulgar philistines, they dedicated their lives to reconstituting the aristocratic art, manners, customs and objects of the era of Louis XV.”79 Although Silverman’s assessment of the Goncourts’ Japonisme as just a taste for “the Japanese products that eighteenth-century French elites had sought out enthusiastically” echoes a critique frequently voiced by the brothers’ Parisian contemporaries, she, nevertheless, broadens this paradigm to characterize all the Japonistes: “The magnificent variety of Japanese artifacts was welcomed by French collectors, who were particularly receptive to the cultural vestiges of a foreign traditional feudal caste after the bloody class warfare of the Commune.”80 Discussing Philippe Burty, for instance, Silverman generalizes that he “emphasized the affinity between the Japanese nobility and the objects created for them, positing, like the Goncourts, a direct correspondence between the delicate serpentine shapes of the applied arts and the refinement and elegance of those for whom they were made.”81 But Burty was not Goncourt. On the contrary, since the late 1860s—just the time he began to promote Japonisme—Burty’s status as a Japoniste was matched by his reputation as a champion of republican democracy. In the 1860s, writing in the radical journal Le Rappel, Burty regularly attacked the arts policies of Emperor Napoleon III, with the result that, following the Franco-Prussian War, he was appointed art critic of the influential republican journal La République française.82 An early supporter of the Impressionists, Burty embraced Romantic ideals of the artist as agitator, an attitude that is evident in his article on the poet “Ko Mati,” which Régamey excerpted in his special issue of La Plume: “Ultimately, from the anger her memory seems to provoke in some minds, one may recognize the suspicions aroused among the virtuous of all countries and all times

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by the unmanageable spirit of poets.” Burty here also went to some length to argue that the facial features of “Ko Mati,” as represented by various artists, allied her with a conquered race of Japanese, despite her resemblance to images of European aristocrats.83 In the immediate wake of the Franco-Prussian War, Burty’s influential “Japonisme” series of articles in 1872–1873 was even franker in his fascination with the aesthetics of defeat. Here Japanese poetry is explicitly allied with the voice of the vanquished. Its “profound” themes, Burty writes, are “the sensuousness of death shared with others,” especially as spoken by women: “the wife of a commander at the moment the enemies penetrate his town” and “the widow of an emperor” on the day of his death. Burty concluded his installment on Japanese poetry: But here, I think, is the most touching stroke. An exile sees Spring implacably flowering around him. Seated on the terrace of the temporary residence he hates, he says: “Although, since my departure, my house is lived in by another master,Â� do not forget, plum blossoms, to flower by the edge of his roof.”84

Far from celebrating Japanese aristocracy, Burty, in this series of articles that coined the term “Japonisme,” highlighted what he claimed was universal literacy in Japan, describing—like Régamey in his preface to The Pink Notebook—some well-used Japanese schoolbooks and remarking on how many Japanese prints show people writing and reading. Marveling over the popular literature of Japan, Burty drew attention to a story about an evil king whose victims return as ghosts to trouble his sleep, commenting that this moral is “salutary and quite unexpected in the context of such an essentially aristocratic country.”85 Burty was far from alone in his dual identities as republican and Japoniste. It has been recently argued that a sake-drinking club known as the Société Japonaise du Jing-lar, which was founded in 1868 by Burty and some friends, used Japonisme to mask its dangerous republican sympathies, and it is worth noting that, a year before Régamey’s special issue of La Plume, the journal had devoted another special issue to the theme of “Popular Song in Japan.”86 Among the contributors to Régamey’s special issue, Théodore Duret had come to Japan as a direct result of his involvement in politics: he and the economist Henri Cernuschi fled to Japan when they were briefly sentenced to death during the chaos of the Commune in 1871.87 Cernuschi

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returnedÂ�with a substantial collection of East Asian art, which he installed in a purpose-built house-museum in Paris. The façade of this remarkable institution was—and remains to this day—adorned with mosaics depicting Cernuschi’s enlightenment heroes, Aristotle and Leonardo da Vinci, along with the words “February” and “September,” the months in which (in 1848 and again in 1870) republican government was established in nineteenth-century France. In the main exhibition hall, plaques bearing the names of major cities in China and Japan are juxtaposed with escutcheons in the plaster ceiling carrying the liberal motto “Libertas et Virtus.” For his part, Duret combined a career as a Japoniste, collecting Japanese prints and publishing a book on his Asian travels as well as articles on Japanese art, with writing histories of the establishment of republican government in France and fervent defenses of the similarly anti-authoritarian new art of the Impressionists. The Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro in a letter to Duret praised the Japanese for being “reckless and revolutionary in things artistic,” and Duret’s articles credited Japan with inspiring the Impressionists to overturn the Academy’s artificial rules for painters’ use of color: “It took the arrival of Japanese albums among us for anyone to dare to sit down on a river bank in order to juxtapose on canvas a roof that could be boldly red, a wall that could be white, a green poplar, a yellow road, and blue water. Before Japan this was impossible; the painter always lied.”88 In sum, Japonisme in late-nineteenth-century Paris was at least as associated with the political and aesthetic avant-garde as with nostalgia for the pre-Revolutionary aristocracy.89 Duret’s article in La Plume reiterates this association of Japonisme and the avant-garde, recalling, “For a long time, moreover, the promoters of the new study, which took the name Japonisme and was something above all Parisian, were seen as restricted to a tiny little group that compensated for its numeric weakness by the ardor of its convictions and their faith in the triumph to come.”90 Even associations between Japanese art and the French rococo did not necessarily imply reactionary politics. Visually, the two styles were often compared to show that beauty need not depend on the neoclassical rules of linearity and symmetry adhered to by the Academy. Burty, in his 1868 booklet on enamels, nuanced the visual comparison but retained its subversive charge, explaining, “Japanese art tends constantly to break the rigidity of the straight line, more often by combinations of angles than by the curves that did this for our attractive eighteenth-century French style. The

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Academies severely condemn these tendencies.”91 Such associations of this aesthetic with individual freedom adhered even to the Goncourts, whose extravagant elitism was widely seen as part of their self-conscious eccentricity. Reviewing their collection, the Japoniste Louis Gonse presented their fusion of Japanese and eighteenth-century art as an expression of “individuality” that united “the two arts that are precisely the most delicate, the most refined, the freest from constraint and convention.”92 These associations were exactly what Régamey invoked in his 1890 book Le Japon pratique, which was translated into English in 1892 as Japan in Art and Industry: The Louis XV style, so elegant and so smart, so French in one word, owes much to Japanese art. Not that it had servilely borrowed anything from it, nor copied it, but that its imaginative verve was spurred by Japanese example to shake off the trammels of the precise rules of the preceding style. And thus it is that at the two extremities of the world the same air was sung at the same moment by artists, keeping each the manner absolutely proper to his individuality.93

When Loti, in contrast, invoked the eighteenth century in describing Japan, his emphasis was on aristocratic manners. At a Japanese inn, complaining about the food, the smoke, and the cold, Loti nevertheless delighted in the mousmé who served him “with the bows of a Louis XV marquise.”94 Régamey emphasizes Loti’s snobbery in his preface to The Pink Notebook. Quoting the travel essays in which Loti complains of taking a street car in Japan—“How I regret, my god, having strayed into this vehicle of the people”—Régamey exclaims: “See him dabbing with his handkerchief at his aristocrat’s nose in order to fight off the unpleasant smell ‘of rancid camellia oil, of wild animals, of the yellow race!’↜渀屮”95 Just as comparisons between Japan and the French eighteenth century differed in their implications, so too descriptions of the Japanese as a race of artists and of Japan as itself a work of art—both common across the spectrum of Japonistes—carried various implications reflecting different ideas of the role of art in French culture. Loti, for instance, opened and closed Madame Chrysanthème with accounts of shopping, a frame, critics point out, that established Japan as simply “an ‘immense bazaar’↜渀屮” of bric-a-brac,96 much as eighteenth-century collectors imagined it. Loti’s final descriptions of Japan in Madame Chrysanthème condescend simultaneously to Japanese artists,

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EuropeanÂ�collectors, and art merchants of both the East and the West. “Workmen squatted on their heels, carving with their imperceptible tools, the droll or odiously obscene ivory ornaments, marvelous cabinet curiosities which have made Japan so famous with the European amateurs who have never seen it.” In the shops, “business transactions begin again, and the struggle for existence, close and bitter here as in one of our own artisan quarters, but meaner and smaller.” Loti’s references here to the Japanese “unconscious artists tracing . . . traditional designs learnt by heart, or transmitted to their brains by a process of heredity through thousands of years” (liii), contrast with his account (included in Part II) of how he amazed his coterie of Japanese women with his accurate drawing skills: “Never have they seen anyone draw realistically, since Japanese art is completely conventional, and my style delights them.”97 Loti’s confidence in himself as the bearer of a superior mode of visual rendering makes it unsurprising that he had little interest in Japanese artists. His account of the one Japanese artist he encountered by chance (also included in Part II) presents this man’s art as simply a distraction for the clients awaiting the sexual favors of his landlady. Régamey has Chrysanthème express distress over Pierre’s condescension, though she excuses him by saying “a sailor need not be an expert judge of painting!”—a remark that, from Régamey’s pen, implies its own condemnation. In contrast, Régamey, while in Japan, sought out living artists and made a point of mentioning in his preface to The Pink Notebook “Kiosaï, the great artist who is our friend.” Kawanabe Kyosai made something of a specialty of interacting with foreigners.98 Guimet and Régamey, however, present this “Painter and Criminal,” to quote the title of the first chapter dedicated to him in Promenades japonaises (in Part II), as elusive and mysterious. They describe Kyosai as a bohemian artist indifferent to respected customs and as a cartoonist deeply concerned with current politics, antagonistic toward religion, and willing to face prison for his critiques of both the preand postrevolutionary governments in Japan. Guimet’s breathless account of the “duel” between Régamey and Kyosai explicitly debunks “the claim that Japanese artists are incapable of portraiture” and insists that the Western and Eastern artists are equals: twin paradigms of the romantic ideal of the avant-garde artist as social outsider and political subversive. In short, the common repertoire of French associations with JapanÂ� —as a land of artists, as redolent of the eighteenth century, and,

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most important, as embodied in its women—belies the wider range of meanings various Japonistes attached to these ideas. For some, the taste for Japan was conservative, a fusion of nostalgic fantasies of the ancien régime and imperialist fantasies that masked late-nineteenthcentury France’s severely weakenedÂ� position in relation to Germany. As a naval officer, Loti had to know that France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian war had prompted the Japanese to shift from French to German military advisers, but this reality is obfuscated in his story of Japan, in which, on Bastille Day, the American and English soldiers join in singing the Marseillaise as “all the ships are dressed out with flags, and salutes are firing in our honor” (xi). For other Japonistes, however, Japan offered a different fantasy as a proxy for France, in Matsuda’s words, “tormented by the foreigner, yet possessed of a rare and brilliant culture.”99 The consequences of this fantasy were complex, for in defending Japan against imperialists like Loti, Régamey simultaneously disavowed certain manifestations of French identity, most notably its imperialist military, in order to assert alternative forms of supremely French sensibility. Régamey’sÂ� identification as an artist respected by other artists—by Kyosai rather than by Loti’s gaggle of spectators impressed by perspective—enacts a superior kind of Frenchness associated with avant-garde artistic accomplishment. Régamey’s claims to truly know Chrysanthème, to understand her in a way Loti can never hope to, also asserts another kind of French superiority, this one associated with an ideal of romance. Régamey, by championing Chrysanthème against Loti, showed himself to exemplify a Frenchness defined by Romantic ideas of courtly love, which gained currency in the late nineteenth century as a mode of French self-understanding cast in opposition to Prussian aggression.100 The intensity of Régamey’s identification with Chrysanthème, however, risked another kind of disavowal: that of masculinity. As an itinerant childless bachelor, Régamey’s relationship to bourgeois masculinity was attenuated even before he adopted the authorial position of a Japanese woman.101 But the figure of violated Japanese woman could allude to the plight of the Japonistes themselves, who had seen their avant-garde taste reduced to popular fashion. By 1883 a review of an exhibition of Japanese art complained, “Japan opened itself to us, and, while a small group of artists thrilled and rejoiced at the fresh scents of that virgin art, fashion, that ever-alert panderer, seized the new idea, turned it over to commerce, prostituted it in the boutique,

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rolled it in the mud of the lowest craftwork, stripped it, dirtied it, and the poor girl, ashamed, sprawled across our discount shops.”102 In this metaphor, the Japonistes are failed knights, unable to protect the damsel of Japan from exploitation. The differences between Loti’s and Régamey’s versions of Madame Chrysanthème, in sum, are less about antagonistic visions of Japan— indeed, their perceptions are quite similar—than about antagonistic ideas of what it meant to be French at the end of the nineteenth century. Facing rapidly shifting economic pressures and an unstable government weakened by Prussian defeat, nostalgic impulses for absolute authority (whether monarchical or imperial) competed with republican ideals to achieve a new social and political order premised on characteristics optimistically ascribed to the French, among them a special sensitivity to aesthetic and erotic experience. In this competition of ideas, attitudes toward Japan—another rapidly modernizing nation struggling to withstand foreign domination—became something of a litmus test. What was more French: aristocratic disdain for or fraternal empathy with a culture defined by feminine grace and artistic accomplishment? Loti and Régamey exemplified opposite responses to that question. Â� Japan in/as Fiction If the Japonistes’ competing representations of Japan reflected fractures in European politics, avant-garde artists saw in Japan the fragmentation of Western notions of representation itself. Oscar Wilde in 1889 famously proclaimed: “The whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people. . . . The Japanese people are . . . simply a mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art.” Explaining, “the Japanese people are the deliberate self-conscious creation of certain individual artists,” Wilde concluded: And so, if you desire to see a Japanese effect, you will not behave like a tourist and go to Tokio. On the contrary, you will stay home, and steep yourself in the work of certain Japanese artists, and then, when you have absorbed the spirit of their style and caught their imaginative manner of vision, you will go some afternoon and sit in the Park or stroll down Piccadilly, and if you cannot see an absolutely Japanese effect there, you will not see it anywhere.103

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These comments come in Wilde’s essay “The Decay of Lying,” a manifesto for art as a creative, rather than mimetic, enterprise. More recently, the literary theorist Thomas Beebee, citing Van Gogh’s use of frames embellished with Japanese writing to set his painted copies of Japanese prints into visual quotation marks, invoked the term “japanery” to describe modernist authors’ challenges to conventional realism.104 For both critics, the point is that imagining the exotic East—and no place is farther East from the perspective of the West than Japan—allowed the West to break with its own conventions of representation. This was certainly true for Loti. Régamey’s preface gives short shrift to Loti’s “brilliant style,” but the enduring fascination of his Madame Chrysanthème derives from the complexity of the narrative voice, which contrasts with Loti’s straightforwardly narrated travel essays on Japan—these are more blatantly condescending and selfaggrandizing than his novel and have fallen into deserved oblivion. In Madame Chrysanthème, Loti repeatedly intrudes on the narrative to draw attention to the act of narration. He ponders, for instance, why writing about Tahiti or Istanbul differs from writing about Japan, where “words exact and truthful in themselves seem always too thrilling, too great for the subject, seem to embellish it unduly” (viii), and speculates that “some kind of graphic sign would have also to be expressly invented and scattered at haphazard amongst the words, indicating the moment at which the reader should laugh” (xii). And although the novel’s diary structure initially asserts an authenticity concerning Japan, this is denied by the narrator’s obvious unreliability—Pierre’s petulant misunderstandings not only of Chrysanthème but also of his sailor friend Yves are clear to the reader—so that the book becomes an account of the personality of the narrator rather than of what he purports to describe. Loti alerts the reader to this fact in his dedication, which insists that “although the most important role may appear to devolve on Madame Chrysanthème, it is very certain that the three principal personages are myself, Japan, and the effect produced on me by that country.” This subjectivity is emphasized when, starting in the introduction and at numerous points thereafter, descriptions of Japan provoke nostalgic memories of childhood in France. Recent critics have noted how Loti’s slippage between past and present, which reinforces his presentation of Japan as locked in timeless childhood, became an important reference point for modernist authors, among them Marcel Proust, whose apparently

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autobiographicalÂ� narration of unrequited love infused with nostalgia for childhood is indebted to Madame Chrysanthème.105 Régamey, the illustrator, made no claims as a literary stylist. His only book before The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème bore the prosaic title Drawing Instruction in the United States.106 In attempting to write from a Japanese perspective, however, Régamey too found himself reaching for new literary effects, which, in retrospect, seem prescient of aspects of postmodern literature, most obviously the decision to rewrite a classic work of fiction from a subaltern’s perspective. This compares to many much later novels: Jean Rhys’ 1966 Wide Sargasso Sea (a retelling of Jane Eyre), John Gardner’s 1971 Grendel (Beowulf), Gregory Maguire’s 1995 Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz), and Alice Randall’s 2003 The Wind Done Gone (Gone with the Wind), just to name some of the best-known examples. Perhaps there is something in Loti’s proudly self-serving subjectivity that invites such rewriting. Among the fascinating lesser-known offshoots of Madame Chrysanthème are the 1899 short story “A Half Caste” and the 1902 novel Miss Morning Glory: The American Diary of a Japanese Girl. The former, by the Canadian Winnifred Eaton, who published as Onoto Watanna, describes an old roué who returns to Japan, where he had earlier enjoyed a temporary wife, only to be horrified when he is seduced by a geisha who turns out to be his own daughter.107 The novel Miss Morning Glory, published anonymously by the male Japanese traveler Yone Noguchi, presents itself as the journal of a precocious Japanese young woman who flirts her way across the United States, making knowing allusions to the genre of travel literature written by men about Japan. Having equipped herself before leaving Japan with a corset, silk stockings, and an American hairdo, she dismisses what she has read in “a paper on our bamboo land by Mr. Somebody” about the mousmé↜渀屮’s preference for kimonos, saying: “He failed to make of me a completely happy nightingale.” Later, noting that—because “the Japanese have no boundary between L and R”—“the honorable author of ‘Madame Butterfly’ [John Luther Long] is Mr. Wrong,” Morning Glory remarks: “I dislike that ‘Madame.’ It sounds indecent ever since the ‘gentleman’ Loti spoiled it with his ‘Madame Chrysanthème.’↜渀屮” Addressing these authors and their readers, Morning Glory demands: “Do I vex you, gentlemen, when I say that your Japanese type could only be an unprincipled half-caste? . . . Your Oriental novel, let me be courageous enough to say, is a farce at

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its best. Oh, just wait, my sweet Americans! A genuine one will soon be offered to you by Morning Glory.”108 Like Régamey’s Pink Notebook, these turn-of-the-century anglophone reimaginings of tropes derived from Loti deploy—without acknowledging—crucial forms of authorial impersonations, whether across the lines of ethnicity, as in Eaton’s case, or of sex, as in the case of Noguchi. More self-consciously, the Japanese author Akutagawa Ryunosuke rewrote one of Loti’s Japanese travel essays, “Un Bal à Yeddo” (A ball at Edo), in his 1920 short story “Butokai” (The ball), which renarrates Loti’s account from the perspective of the girl he danced with. Like Régamey’s version of Chrysanthème’s tale, Akutagawa’s narrative adheres closely to Loti’s text, re-presenting each episode in a way that highlights Loti’s self-aggrandizing misrepresentations. At the moment when Loti condescendingly muses about the Japanese girl he danced with, “she was dressed just like a marriageable young lady of our country (a rather countrified one, to be honest, from Carpentras or Landerneau),” for instance, Akutagawa’s female narrator recalls that the Frenchman complimented her appearance and assured her: “It’s not flattery. You could attend a ball in Paris just as you are.” Akutagawa’s story concludes with a short epilogue that addresses issues of authorial authenticity, introducing a “youthful novelist” to whom this nineteenth-century story is being told in 1919. When this man tells the now-elderly woman who has been recounting the story that her dancing partner that night was “the author of Madame Chrysanthème, Pierre Loti,” she contradicts him with the story’s last line: “No he was not called Loti. He was named Julien Viaud.”109 Akutagawa’s brief engagement with the author function is quite complex: the Western-educated Japanese novelist, writing in the first person, has the supposedly naïve Japanese woman insist against the “youthful novelist” on Viaud’s difference from Loti, a distinction Westerners (starting with Viaud/Loti himself) have been disinclined to make. Akutagawa’s reflection on issues of authoriality engaged debates animating Japanese literature around 1920, as Japanese writers responded to the autobiographical turn among Western novelists like Loti and Proust, bringing full circle a complex sequence of crosscultural readings and misreadings that had passed through Japan before.110 Régamey’s rewriting—a jeu d’esprit by someone who did not think of himself as an author of fiction—seems to anticipate literary debates of an era much later than his 1893 context. This is true

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not only of Régamey’s decision to write from the point of view of another author’s character, but also of the intriguing epilogue to The Pink Notebook, in which Loti’s Madame Chrysanthème is gleefully misread—broken up, paraphrased—to reveal claims to authenticity, whether concerning Japan or the author’s sensibility, as functions of text.111 Fittingly, Régamey ends with a pun that refers to the materiality of Madame Chrysanthème as a book “on Japan,” a reference to a Western publishing practice of printing on a kind of paper called “Japon.” Literature would have to wait another eighty years—when the French author Philippe Curval concluded his 1975 short story “Un Souvenir de Pierre Loti” with “Il y a un anagramme à l’utopie; c’est Loti pue”—for a similar effect.112 The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème concludes on a note that seems uncannily postmodern. But neither play with textuality and authorship nor emphasis on the materiality of the print medium was Régamey’s concern. If his Pink Notebook does not speak for Japanese women, it does, on some level, speak for Régamey. As already noted, the opening episodes of The Pink Notebook draw on Régamey’s first experiences in Japan. Before the European sailors on horseback ride their terrifying way into the plot, however, Régamey proposes an authorial position that is both complex and ethical. Most obviously, the book begins with a preface, a somewhat disjointed manifesto so larded with scholarly quotations that one is tempted to read the pastiche of the epilogue as Régamey’s satire on his own processes of writing as he attempted to patch together fragments of evidence to counter Loti’s image of Japan. Despite all the quotations, however, Régamey’s preface asserts a conventional—certainly opinionated—authorial “I”. The first thing this “I” does is seek to read a text authored by a Japanese schoolgirl. This reading leads to analysis that attempts to balance cross-cultural claims for sameness (“these notebooks . . . teach us that children’s language is the same everywhere”) and difference (a passionate argument against the imposition of Western art media on the calligraphic tradition of Japan). Régamey’s argument about art took part in a larger debate raging in and about Japan, where by the 1890s a backlash against slavishly imitating the West had encouraged a reinvigoration of indigenous artistic practices. Régamey’s position in favor of preserving the distinctiveness of Japanese culture was typical of Parisian Japonistes, who were drawn to the exoticism of Japan.113 What is more distinctive is Régamey’s attempt to balance arguments in favor of cultural

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differenceÂ�with assertions of fundamental human commonality, which are at odds with the claims for distinct “racial” aesthetic heritages voiced by many of his French compatriots.114 That this assertion of sameness flows from the text authored by the Japanese girl proposes the act of writing as Chrysanthème as an impulse toward empathy, however flawed by period stereotypes it now seems.115 If readers today are put off by the clichés of selfless, submissive femininity articulated by Régamey’s Chrysanthème, it should be noted that his text presents these traits as themselves cultural artifacts, the products of a place where “songs and plays . . . describe and dramatize all the obstacles lovers must overcome before marrying” and mothers warn daughters that assertiveness is a foreign influence. Moreover, Régamey does, finally, allow Chrysanthème to discover and voice her anger. The words of the dutiful and submissive wife presented in The Pink Notebook are prefaced by a dedication that, in the fiction of the story, would have been written last. This opening, therefore, is Chrysanthème’s conclusion. Writing here she is “no longer a child.” She voices the question implied by her sorry history with Pierre—“how could that stranger claim the empire of my soul, which he never seemed to have the curiosity to penetrate”—and wonders more broadly, “The Chinese may be right to treat the men who come from the Occident as barbarians and red devils . . . and we may be wrong to welcome them and to want to imitate them.” This dedication, like the rest of The Pink Notebook, responds to Loti’s original, in which the dedication warning that the “principal personages” of the novel were “myself, Japan, and the effect produced on me by that country” explicitly disavowed any impulse at empathy. Loti addressed his dedication to the Duchess of Richelieu. Writing as the neglected Chrysanthème, Régamey dedicated his story to the “Countess Matsoukata,” identifying her as “Ambassadress in Paris.” Both these figures, interpellated as primary readers of each text, were real people. Loti posited, as his first reader, a society hostess, the beautiful American-born, Jewish-born, young widow of the Duke of Richelieu.116 Her scandalous aristocratic imprimatur as the intended reader of his Japanese tale seems pitched to titillate and flatter the novel-reading public. Régamey’s choice of the Countess Matsukata suggests a subtler authorial dynamic. The actual Countess Matsukata was married to a Japanese official who spent most of 1878 in Paris as the highestranking government officer overseeing the Japanese displays at the

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Exposition Universelle. As the head of the Japanese delegation, MatsukataÂ� Masayoshi was often referred to as the Japanese ambassador, although Japan had no formal embassy in France at the time. While in Paris, Matsukata hosted entertainments for Parisian Japonistes, among whom he must have taken particular notice of Régamey and Guimet, who staged their own display of “Religions of the Far East” at the exposition, featuring Régamey’s paintings of Japanese religious figures along with the artifacts Guimet had collected. Although Matsukata played the gracious host at dinners featuring demonstrations of Japanese ink painting, he thwarted French dealers’ expectations that he would sell off the art on display at bargain prices at the end of the exposition, as had been done in the past.117 Chrysanthème’s dedication refers to the count’s “mission to Europe” as she imputes to the countess the idea that Japan has gone too far in ingratiating itself with the West: “Is that not nearly what you told me once? Today, more than ever, you must be able to judge them, now that you see them at close quarters.” But the Countess Matsukata was never in Paris. She never in her life left Japan. Nor, despite the factual-sounding reference to a newspaper account of the count’s mission, was he in Europe in 1885 when Chrysanthème’s dedication is set. When Régamey reached for an equivalent to Loti’s Duchess of Richelieu, he seems to have cast back, again, into his own experience of the Japanese, extrapolating from an acquaintance with the savvy Count Matsukata a countess sympathetic to a Japanese woman’s righteous anger about her treatment— Japan’s treatment—at the “hard hands” of the West. If Régamey does not—could not—truly give voice to a Japanese woman, he does, in the dedication, articulate an anger he believes Japan is justified in feeling over the imposition of colonial dynamics from the West. This act of empathy, performed by an Occidental, in the West, and for an Occidental audience, is a remarkable accomplishment for 1893, or any other period right up to the present “postcolonial” moment. Conclusion: The Pink Notebook Today It was Loti who announced: “I don’t believe that a man of the European race can write absolutely fairly of the Japanese woman, if he wants to go beyond surfaces and appearances. Only a Japanese could do it . . . and moreover if we were to probe his study too deeply, we would lose our understanding of it, for it would escape us in a way

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that is exactly the most important and profound.” This assertion, which might seem in sympathy with recent theoretical initiatives emphasizing cultural difference, was essentialized by Loti as a matter of race: “The yellow race and ours are the opposite poles of the human species; there are divergent extremes even in our modes of perceiving external objects. . . . I will stay therefore quite superficial . . . and I’d prefer to admit frankly from the beginning that I would not know how to do more.”118 Régamey, in contrast, attempted to imagine his way into the experience of Loti’s semifictional character Madame Chrysanthème. Régamey’s text, although it is hardly a reliable index of Japanese womanhood, offered a spirited intervention in the Japoniste discourses of nineteenth-century Paris. The moment for that intervention, however, was not ripe. Despite a few respectful reviews, Régamey’s Pink Notebook receded quickly to oblivion. Neither Loti’s nor Régamey’s divergent visions of Japan-as-woman helped Europeans to understand Japan’s program of military and imperial expansion, which surprised the West in 1895, when Japan defeated China, and again in 1905, when Japan defeated Russia, the first modern victory of a nonWestern power over a Western one. Indeed, Loti’s Madame Prune, his Japanese sequel published earlier in 1905, mocked the very idea that the Japanese could defeat the Russians. “Each little yellow brain,” he reported, had decided upon war “and reckons insolently upon victory. . . . One cannot overcome one’s astonishment at such confidence and audacity, above all when in the streets one sees the Japanese soldiers and sailors, very neat and very small, beardless little yellow babies, beside the heavy, four-square blond lads of the Russian crews.” When not condescending, Loti was paranoid, concluding Madame Prune’s analysis of the Japanese:Â� The ugliest people in the world, physically speaking. And an excitable, quarrelsome, pride-puffed people, envious of the good fortune of others, handling, with the cruelty and adroitness of monkeys, the machines and explosives whose secrets we were so unspeakably wanting in foresight as to hand over to them. A very small people, which will be, in the midst of the huge yellow family, the hate-ferment against our white races, the provoker of slaughter and invasions in the future.

Any value that Loti’s prediction, in retrospect, might have in relation to Japan’s imperial expansion during the first half of the twentiethÂ�

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century is undercut by Loti’s inability to imagine what role the West played in Japan’s bellicosity. Loti explains “the ever-increasing arrogance which the Japanese affect towards foreigners” and their “hatred of men of the white races” by reference to the fact, he says, that the Japanese “cannot, because of their flat faces, wear pince-nez!”119 Despite—or perhaps because of—Loti’s simplistic image of Japan, his vision, amplified through Puccini, has remained influential. Lushly illustrated editions of Madame Chrysanthème appeared regularly throughout the twentieth century, and many editions of the text obscure the original date of publication, as if Loti’s image of East Asia could—or should—remain current.120 Perhaps the time has come for an appreciation of Régamey’s Pink Notebook and not simply for his precocious anticipation of literary modes associated with postmodernism. In an age when Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha has achieved best-seller status and inspired a major Hollywood movie, the amalgam of wonder and hubris in Régamey’s text seems curiously contemporary.121 His note of empathetic anger might be welcome. Notes 1. Endymion Wilkinson, Japan versus Europe: A History of Misunderstanding (London: Penguin, 1983), 49. Matt K. Matsuda, Empire of Love: Histories of France and the Pacific (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 164. 2. The 1889 Ensor translation was first published by the Paris firm of E. Guillaume. My introduction quotes Ensor’s translation (cited with parenthetical Roman numeral chapter references) except in the instances noted where I offer a revised translation of Loti’s original. The page references for the French text are to the 1888 Calmann-Lévy edition. A second, little-known, English translation by Hettie E. Miller was issued by the Chicago firm of Donohue, Henneberry, and Co. in 1892. 3. To judge from the quotations in the preface to The Pink Notebook, Loti’s travel essays anthologized as Japoneries d’automne (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1889) were at least as provoking to Régamey as Madame Chrysanthème. 4. Philippe Gille, quoted from promotional materials printed with the Cahier Rose. 5. Although such ambiguities undoubtedly characterize colonialism and Orientalism broadly, they were especially pronounced in the case of Japan, which both geographically and chronologically culminated the West’s expansion into the East, as was clear to everyone—including the Japanese—from the moment Admiral Perry “opened” Japan in the 1850s. While “postcolonial” scholarship, often modeled on Edward Said’s influential Orientalism (New York: Random House, 1978), has tended to focus only on the appropriative and exploitative aspect of Western ideologies toward the non-West, a more nuanced approach— often premised in critiques of Said’s totalizing generalities—has recently emerged with particular reference to Japan. John M. MacKenzie cites Said’s indifference to the visual arts, popular culture, and scholarship in gender as contributing to the “essentialising”—Â�

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(5) tendencies in his “binary oppositions”Â� (xiii) of East versus West. MacKenzie regrets Said’s missed opportunity to follow up on his own observation that “the East ‘has helped to define Europe’↜渀屮” as “↜渀屮‘a sort of surrogate and even underground self↜渀屮’↜渀屮” “that can modify and therefore even challenge the West” (Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts [Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995], 10, quoting Said, 1). Lisa Lowe’s Critical Terrains: French and British Orientalisms also challenges Said’s “assumption that orientalism monolithically constructs the Orient as the Other of the Occident” by attending to “concerns with difference” in relation to culture, class, and gender among Occidental writers (ix–x, emphasis original). John Treat is especially critical of Said’s followers whose energetic denunciations of “fantasies of illicit sexuality” set in the East, he says, far from critiquing imperialist attitudes, unwittingly rehearse nineteenth-century attitudes of “missionaries of a scandalized West” (Great Mirrors Shattered: Homosexuality, Orientalism, and Japan [New York: Oxford, 1999], 199, 209). Jan Walsh Hokenson claims that Said’s “generalizations” about Orientalism “apply to perhaps every area of the Far East except Japan” (Japan, France, and East-West Aesthetics [Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004], 25). While this may overstate the case, Andrew Thacker correctly notes that Said’s focus, in the opening chapter of Orientalism, on Andrew Balfour’s speech to the British Parliament asserting a racial basis for Britain’s imperial domination of Egypt ignores that “just a couple of miles west of the House of Commons, at the same time, crowds of British subjects, many doubtless supportive of Balfour’s point of view, were visiting the Japan-British Exhibition. This, in contradistinction to the case of Egypt, offered an oriental country that governed itself and wished to be regarded by Europe as an equivalent imperial power” (“Ezra Pound, Imagism and the Geography of the Orient,” in Geographies of Modernism: Literature, Cultures, Spaces, ed. Peter Brooker and Andrew Thacker [London: Routledge, 2005], 41). 6. Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, n.d. [spring–summer 1888], The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1978), 590, 610 (italics in original). Sources for Van Gogh’s ideas in writings by the Japonistes are discussed in Phylis A. Floyd, “Japonisme in Context: Documentation, Criticism, Aesthetic Reaction” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1983), 205–206, 231–232. 7. Van Gogh, Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh, vol. 2, 620. In fact, musume means “daughter” and carried connotations of artistic accomplishments and social graces at odds with Van Gogh’s ideas of Provençal girls. On Van Gogh’s Japonisme, see Tsukasa Ko¯ dera, “Japan as Primitivistic Utopia: Van Gogh’s Japonisme Portraits,” Simiolus 14, nos. 3–4 (1984): 189–208. 8. Many editions of Ensor’s English translation were published with these illustrations, beginning with an 1893 edition published in Paris by Edouard Guillaume. 9. Emile Guimet, Promenades japonaises, 2 vols. (the second volume is subtitled TokioNikko) (Paris: G. Charpentier, 1878, 1880); quoted from vol. 1, 211–212. 10. Ko¯ dera, “Japan as Primitivistic Utopia,” 198. 11. Promenades japonaises was a standard text among French Japonistes and a book Van Gogh could easily have studied in his japanophile circles in Paris. Van Gogh had admired Régamey’s images of Japan since 1883 and was thinking about him in Arles, for he recommended to his brother an exhibition of Régamey’s paintings and drawings in Paris, noting, “It might be very interesting, as they traveled everywhere, he and his brother” (Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh, vol. 2, 16, 578). 12. By 1888 Lafcadio Hearn had published four fulsome reviews of Loti’s novels before Madame Chrysanthème (collected in his Essays in European and Oriental Literature, ed.

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Albert Mordell [New York: Dodd, Mead, 1923], 125–145) and more than twenty of his own translations of passages of Loti’s prose describing various exotic locales (Stories from Pierre Loti Translated by Lafcadio Hearn, ed. Alfred Mordell [Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1933]). 13. Lafcadio Hearn, “The Most Original of Modern Novelists: Pierre Loti,” 1884, rpt. in his Essays in European and Oriental Literature, 136–137. 14. Lafcadio Hearn, quoted in Edward Tinker, Lafcadio Hearn’s American Days (New York: Dodd, Mead 1924), 328–329. 15. Lafcadio Hearn, The Japanese Letters of Lafcadio Hearn, ed. Elizabeth Bisland (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910), 266, 63, 61. 16. Pierre Loti, La Troisième Jeunesse de Madame Prune, translated by S. R. C. Plimsoll as Madame Prune (New York: Frederick Stokes, 1905), 143, ellipsis in original; this translation was published in the same year the French version of the book appeared. 17. Wilkinson, Japan versus Europe, 48. 18. Maureen Honey and Jean Lee Cole, introduction to “Madame Butterfly” by John Luther Long and “A Japanese Nightingale” by Onoto Watanna (Winnifred Eaton): Two Orientalist Texts (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 9–10. 19. Matt K. Matsuda, “Pierre Loti and the Empire of Love,” Raritan 22, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 2; Hokenson, Japan, France, and East-West Aesthetics, 23–24. 20. Hokenson, Japan, France, and East-West Aesthetics, 101. 21. Alain Quella-Villéger, Pierre Loti: L’incompris (Paris: Presses de la Renaissance, 1986), 132 (my translation). 22. Bruno Vercier, “Préface,” Madame Chrysanthème (Paris: Flammarion, 1990), 5–7 (my translation; ellipses in original). Vercier’s argument is valid as far as it goes, but his adulatory treatment of Loti as an observer of Japan overlooks consideration of how more critical readers might find themselves becoming skeptical observers of Loti and thus of the colonial perspective and perhaps even of the function of narrators in general. Although, as I argue at the end of this essay, Loti’s narration in Madame Chrysanthème invites— almost requires— such critical reading, that has not been how the novel was, and often still is, received. 23. Akane Kawakami, Travellers’ Visions: French Literary Encounters with Japan, 1881–2004 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005), 52. 24. The French lyrics are “Tu l’as dit, je n’étais pour toi qu’une poupée, une mousmé . . .Â� / Mais si j’ai pu te voir partir, le sourire sur les lèvres / Je voudrais que tu saches quand tu seras loin, bien loin, de moi / Qu’au Japon aussi il y a des femmes qui aiment . . . et qui pleurent.” In the concluding lines, Yves sings, “Là-bas, comme chez nous . . . les femmes . . .” and Pierre finishes the line: “sont toujours des femmes!” (André Messager, Madame Chrysanthème: Comédie lyrique en quatre actes; Un Prologue et un épilogue d’après Pierre Loti [Paris: Choudens, 1893], 264 [ellipses in original]). 25. Loti’s “marriage” to the Turkish Aziyadé is recounted in the 1879 novel titled for her, and to the Tahitian Rarahu in the 1880 Le Mariage de Loti. Short stories titled for the Bosnian “Pasquala Ivanovitch” and the Algerian “Suleïma,” both in Loti’s 1883 Fleurs d’ennui, also trace plots of erotic interactions with local women. 26. When Loti revisits Nagasaki in his sequel, Madame Prune, set in 1900–1901, he grants Chrysanthème a plot beyond his original novel. Here his former mother-in-law reports that Chrysanthème is happily married though childless in a nearby city; at the end of the novel, she is reported finally to be pregnant. In this story, Loti again rehearses the theme of the infidelity and unknowability of Japanese women, but when he quits Japan

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in 1901, it is Madame Prune—his former landlady, with whom he believes he has a profound, romantic friendship—who seems surprisingly indifferent to his departure. 27. Norman’s epigraph was one of two on the cover of La Plume 5, no. 108 (15 October 1893); the other was a passage by Octave Mirbeau on Japanese landscape. 28. Philippe Burty, “Histoire de la poétesse Ko Mati,” L’Art 2 (1875): 1–7, 337–342; this lengthy article is abridged to a few representative paragraphs in La Plume. Although Burty identifies Ko Mati as a fifth-century figure, Ono no Komachi, as her name is now usually romanized, was a ninth-century poet. Burty’s “Japonisme” series, discussed later, appeared in Le Renaissance littéraire et artistique, 18 May 1872, 25–26; 15 June 1872, 59–60; 8 July 1872, 83–84; 27 July 1872, 106–107; 10 August 1872, 102–103; 8 February 1873, 3–4. 29. Jean-Claude Martin, “A la recherche de vignes sauvages au Japon: La Mission Degron,” http://www.le-vin-nature.com/blog. 30. Henry Norman’s article on the Yoshiwara, or prostitution district, is abridged from his book The Real Japan: Studies of Contemporary Japanese Manners, Morals, Administration, and Politics (T. Fisher Unwin, 1891). La Plume misprinted Edwin Arnold’s name as Edward Arnold. His article “Love and Marriage” defends and reiterates the praise of the “semi-angelic” Japanese woman advanced in his Japonica (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine & Co., 1891), a collection of essays that first appeared in Scribner’s Magazine. Arnold, who was famous as the author of the 1879 epic poem about Buddha The Light of Asia, was sent to Japan by the Daily Telegraph. His regular reports from Japan between 1889 and 1890 are collected in his Seas and Lands (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1891), 158–502. He also published a translation and adaptation of a Japanese play, Adzuma, or the Japanese Wife (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1893). 31. Adolphe Buisson, in Les Annales politiques et littéraire, 1 December 1887, 1, quoted in Matsuda, Empire, 220. 32. Arnold, Japonica, 92, 108–109. 33. Biographical sources on Félix Régamey include Guimet, Promenades japonaises, vol. 2, 190; the three-page Les Hommes d’aujourd’hui 5, no. 224 (1879); and Henri Nocq, “Félix Régamey,” Bulletin de la Société Franco-Japonaise de Paris, 7, no. 67 (1907): 5–9. 34. Félix Régamey’s journal, 27 August 1876, in Keiko Omoto and Francis Macouin, Quand le Japon s’ouvrit au monde: Emile Guimet et les arts d’Asie (Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1990), 151. 35. Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, n.d. [July 1883], Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh, vol. 2, 72. 36. Klaus Berger, Japonisme in Western Painting from Whistler to Matisse, 1980, trans. David Britt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 12–15. Berger is a little hard on the Goncourts, whose first delighted mention—in their celebrated joint diary—of buying Japanese prints comes on 8 June 1861 (Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, Journal, vol. 1 [Paris: Fasquelle et Flammarion, 1956], 706–707). 37. Félix Régamey, Japan in Art and Industry, 1891, trans. M. French-Sheldon and Eli Lemon Sheldon (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1893), 8. Nocq, “Félix Régamey,” 7. Régamey is listed among the second wave of Japonistes in Ernest Chesneau, “Le Japon à Paris,” Gazette des Beaux Arts 18 (1 Sept. 1878): 387. 38. Guillaume Régamey père provided the color lithographs illustrating specific enamels; Félix provided incidental drawings of Japanese motifs that enliven the text. 39. Philippe Burty, Les Emaux cloisonnés anciens et modernes (Paris: printed for Chez

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Martz jewellers by J. Claye, n.d. [1868]), 58, 61 (my translation). Burty reiterated the primacy of the visual in understanding Japan in the influential series of articles that coined the term “Japonisme”; see especially “Japonisme II,” Renaissance littéraire et artistique, 15 June 1872, 59–60. 40. Omoto and Macouin, Quand le Japon s’ouvrit au monde, 52. Félix’ older brother Guillaume worked for the Illustrated London News, and these images from the FrancoPrussian War appeared over their joint signature. 41. Régamey’s characterization of his American experience—“trois ans de luttes dans la bagarre américaine”—comes in his first letter to his father from Japan (8 September 1876, in Omoto and Macouin, Quand le Japon s’ouvrit au monde, 145). 42. Cited in note 28. 43. E. Guimet to F. Régamey, 16 March 1876, in Françoise Chappuis and Francis Macouin, eds., D’outremer et d’Orient mystique: Les Itinéraraires d’Emile Guimet (Suillyla-Tour: Editions Findakly, 2001), 31. The editors make the point that Régamey’s fluency in English would also have been useful to Guimet. 44. Régamey’s letters from Japan note that he and Guimet called each other by their first names and express his high opinion of Guimet’s work (Omoto and Macouin, Quand le Japon s’ouvrit au monde, 145). Back in France, their “lectures in drawing” are mentioned in the extract from Promenades japonaises included in Part II of this volume and are illustrated in Omoto and Macouin, Quand le Japon s’ouvrit au monde, 100–101. 45. Claude Farrère, Cent dessins de Pierre Loti (Tours: Arrault, 1948), 8–9, 185. 46. Chappuie and Macouin, D’outremer et d’Orient mystique, 32; Les Hommes d’aujourd’hui, n.p.; Félix Régamey, “La Soirée du 17 janvier 1884” (Paris: Librairie de l’Art, Librairie Patriotique et la Revue Alsacienne, 1884). 47. Matt K. Matsuda, “The Tears of Madame Chrysanthème: Love and History in France’s Japan,” French Cultural Studies 11, no. 1 (2000): 36. Loti’s identification with French imperialism was not unambivalent. Although he consistently expressed solidarity with other sailors, Loti’s descriptions of the brutality of French forces in China in 1885 prompted the navy to recall and suspend him for a year, striking at the heart of Loti’s personal and literary identity as a naval officer. Such dissent was not repeated, and Loti’s writings on Japan became more bellicose following Madame Chrysanthème. By the publication of the 1905 sequel, Madame Prune, Loti includes passages nostalgically hymning French sailors and imperial soldiery: “Enthusiasm of men—young, brave and simple—for ideas which are simple, too, but superbly generous—and doubtless eternal despite the efforts of a modern sect to destroy them” (195–196). Such outbursts seem a reaction to his increasing anxiety about France’s position as one among many international actors in an increasingly unpredictable world. The presence of “so many cruisers and torpedo boats belonging to every nation of Europe” in Nagasaki harbor causes his “presentiment that the history of the world was approaching some grave decisive turning point” (112). Also more pronounced in the 1905 novel is Loti’s fantasy of his warship as “that little floating France” (73), apparently untouched by contemporary political controversies at home, where a royalist “of real French spirit” (95), the grandson of Louis XIV, “came so simply to sit at table with us, sailors on a voyage, [and] none of us had the impression that he was a stranger” (112). 48. Pierre Loti, Propos d’exil (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1887), 53 (my translation). 49. Dedication page, Okoma, roman japonais illustré par Félix Régamey, d’après le texte de Takizava-Bakin et les dessins de Chiguenoï (Paris E. Plon, 1883). The primacy of this publication is cited in William Leonard Schwartz, The Imaginative Interpretation of

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the Far East in Modern French Literature, 1800–1925 (Paris: Librarie Ancienne Honoré Champion, 1927), 127. 50. Guimet, quoted in Omoto and Macouin, Quand le Japon s’ouvrit au monde, epigraph, 57. 51. Ensor’s translation renders “d’inconnu et d’incompréhensible” (xix) as “strange and incomprehensible” (53), but inconnu is closer to “unknown,” which retains the implication that being unknown to Loti is the same thing as being not comprehensible. Loti later repeatedly refers to the image as a Buddha. 52. L. M. J. Viaud to Marcel Sémézies, 23 July 1885: “J’ai épousé la semaine dernière pour un mois renouvelable, devant les autorités nippones,Â� une certain Okané-San. . . . Vous avez déjà vu sur tous les éventails cette figure de poupée” (in Omoto and Macouin, Quand le Japon s’ouvrit au monde, 159). 53. Lettres de Pierre Loti à Madame Juliette Adam (Paris: Plon, 1924), 69–70. Adam calls herself Loti’s “mère intellectuelle” in her introduction to this volume (iv); Loti began a letter to her from Japan “Madame ma mère” (68). Yves was also a fictional name, which Viaud, an officer, assigned to a sailor friend of lower rank generally identified as Pierre Le Cor. 54. Loti, quoted in a prefatory note to the 1990 Flammarion edition of Madame Chrysanthème, 39. 55. Guimet, Promenades japonaises, vol. 1, 3. 56. Félix Régamey to Frédéric Régamey, 8 September 1876, in Omoto and Macouin, Quand le Japon s’ouvrit au monde, 146. 57. Félix Régamey to Guillaume Régamey, 8 September 1876, in ibid., 144. 58. Helen Hyde, quoted in William Dinwiddie, “Miss Helen Hyde of Japan,” Harper’s Bazaar 40, no. 1 (January 1906): 13. Perhaps to burnish her own credentials and originality, Hyde here exaggerates Régamey’s Japoniste expertise and downplays his art. Although when she knew Régamey, he had traveled through Japan for just two months but published hundreds of Japanese illustrations in a wide variety of venues, Hyde claimed: “As he had been to Japan many times and had lived there for long periods, he knew his topic thoroughly. He had charge of the Museum of Japanese Art in Paris, and was not recognized so much as a clever artist as he was for his ability to enthuse others and provoke ideas in them.” Hyde’s reference to Régamey’s museum position is almost completely invented, as there was no museum of Japanese art in Paris. Although Régamey certainly knew Guimet’s Japanese collections from their travels together, he had no official post at the Musée Guimet, organized as a museum of comparative religions, which was established in Paris in 1889. 59. Guimet, Promenades japonaises, vol. 2, 30; see also vol. 1, chapter 6, translated in Part II. 60. Félix Régamey’s journal, 29 August 1876, in Omoto and Macouin, Quand le Japon s’ouvrit au monde, 152. 61. Régamey may have borrowed the reference, although not the phrase, from Théodore Duret’s article on Hokusai, which compares Louis XIV’s disdain for a Teniers painting, “in which he was probably able to see only magots,” to the attitudes of aristocratic Japanese painters towards the populist imagery of Hokusai’s prints (Théodore Duret, “Hokousaï,” 1882, rpt. Critique d’avant-garde [Paris: G. Charpentier, 1885], 239). 62. On Wirgman see Sawatari Kiyoko, “Innovational Adaptations: Contacts between Japanese and Western Artists in Yokohama, 1859–1899,” and Allen Hockley, “Expectation and Authenticity in Meiji Tourist Photography,” in Challenging Past and Present:

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The Metamorphosis of Nineteenth-Century Japanese Art, ed. Ellen Conant (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006), 86–89, 118, 122. 63. Guimet’s text in Promenades japonaises refers to Wirgman as the “likable illustrator of Yokohama-Punch” (vol. 1, 57). 64. This translation of Loti’s phrase, which is shorter than Ensor’s (xxxiv), is more in the cadence of Loti’s original (191–192) and more likely to fit on a fan. 65. Détang is quoted from promotional materials printed with the Cahier Rose. 66. Louis-Emile Bertin, “Allocution de M. Bertin,” Bulletin de la Société FrancoJaponaise de Paris 7, no. 67 (1907): 12. 67. Hokenson, Japan, France, and East-West Aesthetics, 102. Vercier, preface to Madame Chrysanthème (cited at note 22), 11. 68. Matsuda, Empire, 163. 69. Kawakami, Travellers’ Visions, 51–52. 70. Vercier, preface to Madame Chrysanthème, 12–13. 71. Exemplifying similar attitudes among other Parisian Japonistes, the collector and photographer Hugues Krafft concluded his published account of his travels to Japan in 1882–1883 with a passage lauding Japanese women: Mild, patient, raised with the idea of affectionate submission, she consecrates to the well-being of her lord and master the goal of her existence; always happy and smiling, with a natural sense of devotion heightened by her education, she exercises an influence weak in appearance, but which nevertheless penetrates so far into all the details of life that it constitutes, without any doubt, one of the principal magnets of this country secretly dominated by her. (Hugues Krafft, Souvenirs de notre tour de monde [Paris: Hachette, 1885], 358 [my translation]) 72. The most detailed accounts of Arnold’s year in Japan, between 1889 and 1890, are his weekly reports in the Daily Telegraph, reprinted in his Seas and Lands. Dedicated to his adult daughter, who accompanied him to Japan, the book describes his travels within Japan as well as public lectures and receptions in his honor, and offers a spirited advocacy of the Japanese government’s efforts to throw off colonial impositions by Western nations. Inflected perhaps by his political advocacy for Japan or by Christian authorities’ condemnation of his popular Light of the World poem, accountsÂ� of Arnold in Japan differ substantially from his self-presentation, criticizing him as a kind of race traitor. Many sources report that Arnold took a Japanese wife. He was satirized in a Punch cartoon as “A Real Good Jap” (Hugh Cortazzi, The Japan Society: A History, 1891–2000 [London: Japan Society, 2001], 9–10) and condemned in the New York Times for associating with “native dancing girls” and making himself “absurd in his extravagant praises of the Japanese women. He called them ‘angels of light’ in his poems, whereas they are creatures of clay, and poor specimens at that” (“Sir Edwin Arnold in Japan; Reports Which Are Not Very Creditable to the English Poet,” New York Times, 18 September 1892 [http://query. nytimes.com/mem/archive-free]). 73. Henri de Riberolles, “Le Sonnet de la Mousmé,” La Plume 5, no. 108 (15 October 1893): 429. It is hard to square Régamey’s selection of this blatantly condescending poem with his own attitudes expressed in this issue of La Plume. The poet, however, had influence, both as an old friend of Régamey’s Japoniste colleague Emile Guimet (Riberolles had contributed a closing verse to Guimet’s earlier A travers l’Espagne [Lyon: Charles Méra,

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1962]) and as an early resident of Japan following his appointment to the first Japanese law faculty in 1872. Régamey excised his quotation of Riberolles’ poem “The Sonnet of the Samurai” from his article “The Japanese Soul” when he revised it as the preface to The Pink Notebook translated here. 74. Vercier’s phrase invokes—although his analysis does not engage—Luce Irigiray’s influential 1977 feminist text Ce sexe qui n’en est pas un, translated as This Sex Which Is Not One, trans. Catherine Porter with Carolyn Burke (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985). 75. Ensor’s translation (xi) elides the reference to frimousse in Loti’s original (82). 76. Starting with the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1867–1868, for which the Japanese government commissioned a suite of one hundred prints, fifty images of women and fifty views of Edo (Floyd, “Japonisme in Context,” 112), Japan consistently represented itself to the West in the image of its women. Japan’s presence in frequent world’s fairs invariably included a tea house staffed by kimono-clad women. Nor was this emblem confined to displays of Japaneseness abroad. The purported portrait of O-Kane-san—that is, Chrysanthème—displayed in the museum in Nagasaki today is clearly derived from Rossi’s illustration. This painting is by Georges Bigot, a French artist who lived in Japan between 1882 and 1899 (Jan van Rij, Madame Butterfly: Japonisme, Puccini, and the Search for the Real Cho-Cho-San [Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2001], 32, 169, n. 4). 77. Matsuda, “Tears,” 33–35. 78. Although Jules Goncourt died in 1870, Edmond through the 1880s hosted a well known literary salon, known as le grenier (the attic), where both Loti and Régamey were guests (Schwartz, Imaginative Interpretation, 79, 129). On the house, see Edmond de Goncourt, La Maison d’un artiste, 2 vols. (Paris: Bibliothèque Charpentier, n.d. [1880]). 79. Debora Silverman, Art Nouveau in Fin-de-siècle France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 17–19. 80. Ibid., 20, 179. Compare, for example, Siegfried Bing’s 1897 “Les Arts de l’ExtrêmeOrient dans la collection des Goncourt,” published as the preface to a catalog of the collection when it was auctioned on Edmond’s death. Although the preface was written as a eulogy for Edmond de Goncourt, Bing emphasized that his collection of relatively recent, highly decorated Japanese artifacts valued for their perceived affinity with the French eighteenth century was unique, “the image of its author,” who remained unaffected by broader trends toward scholarly knowledge and appreciation of more “austere” older works among the other Parisian Japonistes (iv). 81. Silverman, Art Nouveau, 128–129. Silverman’s characterization of Burty is footnoted to his 1884 lectures “La Poterie et la porcelaine au Japon,” in the Revue des arts decoratifs (5 [1884–1885]: 385–418), but nothing in this text supports her claims. On the contrary, Burty concluded these lectures by celebrating the passing of the aristocratic taste for palaces and welcoming a more diverse approach to art among “citizens,” who, free of the monarchy, are learning not to look to the state for guidance about taste and are developing their own individuality (418). 82. Gabriel P. Weisberg, The Independent Critic: Philippe Burty and the Visual Arts of Mid–Nineteenth Century France (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 125–130, 145. 83. Burty, “Histoire de la poétesse Ko Mati,” 3, 340. 84. Burty, “Japonisme III,” 84. It is worth noting that La Renaissance littéraire et artistique, the journal where Burty’s “Japonisme” series appeared, was new in 1872; in addition to its title suggesting hopes for a rebirth of culture under the parliamentary democracy of the Third Republic, the journal treated populist themes, including the death of

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the gymnast Léotard (for whom the garment is named) (21 December 1872) and the poetry of Walt Whitman (15 June, 8 July, 13 July 1872). The magazine also, in a front page essay, welcomed the opening of a Buddhist temple in Paris (9 November 1872). 85. Burty, “Japonisme VI,” 4; “Japonisme V,” 123. Claims for universal literacy go back to the accounts of Admiral Perry’s expedition to Japan, which reported in 1856, “The people are universally taught to read and are eager for information” (Francis Hawks, Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan [Washington, D.C.: Congress of the United States, 1856], vol. 1, 463, quoted in Floyd, “Japonisme in Context,” 191; Floyd notes that a French translation of Hawkes’ report was published in 1859 as Le Japon: Expédition de Commodore Perry). As late as 1904, Lafcadio Hearn reported from Japan, “Here every one has been taught; every one knows how to write and speak beautifully, how to compose poetry” (Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation [New York: Macmillan, 1904], 18). 86. Jean-Paul Bouillon, “A gauche, note sur la Société du Jing-Lar et sa signification,” Gazette des beaux-arts, March 1978, 107–118. “Chanson populaire au Japon” was the theme of La Plume 72 (15 April 1892). 87. The most thorough analysis of this incident is Inaga Shigemi, “Théodore Duret et Henri Cernuschi: Journalisme politique, voyage en Asie et collection japonaise,” Ebisu special issue, Winter 1998, 79–85. 88. Camille Pissarro to Théodore Duret, in Ernest Scheyer, “Far Eastern Art and French Impressionism,” Art Quarterly 6 (1943): 128. Théodore Duret, Les Peintres impressionnistes, 1878, rpt. Critique d’avant-garde, 65. Duret’s major text on republicanism is his Histoire de quatre ans, 1870–1873, 3 vols. (Paris: Charpentier, 1876, 1878, 1880). 89. Phylis A. Floyd’s Japonisme in Context, a careful study of period sources, concludes that Japonisme was “more often” associated with the avant-garde than with conservative taste (189). 90. Théodore Duret, “L’Art japonais,” La Plume 108 (15 October 1893): 422. 91. Burty, Les Emaux cloisonnés, 68. 92. Louis Gonse, “La Maison d’un artiste, par Edmond de Goncourt,” Gazette des beaux-arts 23, series 2, n. 24 (July 1881): 101. 93. Félix Régamey, Japan in Art and Industry, trans. M. French-Sheldon and Eli Lemon Sheldon (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1892), 62. 94. Loti, Japoneries d’automne, 255. 95. Régamey here quotes Loti, Japoneries d’automne, 282–283. 96. Vercier, preface to Madame Chrysanthème, 8, quoting the French text of Madame Chrysanthème (12). 97. Viaud, in fact, had excelled in art in school, and his naval training included courses in drawing. Before he started writing about his travels, he sold travel illustrations to journals such as Illustration and Tour du monde (Leslie Blanch, Pierre Loti, The Legendary Romantic [New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983], 69). A group of his drawings was published by Claude Farrère as Cent dessins de Pierre Loti (Paris: Arrault, 1948). This book includes an image of a temple near Nagasaki, which Viaud visited (183). Farrère contrasts the “subjective” writings Viaud published as Pierre Loti with the drawings, which he sees as objective, noting the difference between the dignified image of the temple and the text of Madame Chrysanthème (48, 201–202). 98. Kyosai (1831–1889) taught Francis Brinkley, the publisher of the Japan Mail, and impressed the artist Mortimer Menpes, who published “A Lesson from Khiosi” in The Magazine of Art (April 1888, 192–195). He attracted the attention of the British scholar

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William Anderson, who published “A Japanese Artist: Kawanabé Kyo¯ sai” in The Studio (15, [1899]: 29–39) and donated a suite of his work, commissioned in 1879, to the British Museum. The American painter John La Farge, following his trip to Japan, gave a lecture on Kyosai at the Architectural League in New York in 1893. British architect Josiah Condor also studied painting with Kyosai and published Paintings and Studies by Kawanabe Kyosai (Tokyo: printed by the Japan Times for Maruzen Kabushiki Kaisha, 1911). On Kyosai, see Ayako Ono, Japonisme in Britain (London: Routledge, 2003), 107–111; and Timothy Clark, Demon of Painting: The Art of Kawanabe Kyo¯ sai (London: British Museum Press, 1993). 99. Matsuda, Empire, 165. 100. See Matsuda, “Tears.” This dynamic is even clearer in Loti’s 1905 Madame Prune, where he contrasts the “too uproarious” behavior of Russian and German sailors in Nagasaki’s Yoshiwara (prostitution district) to “feeling assured by the flattering attentions of their reception, that my men have known how to awake genuine feelings in these salons” (117–118). Despite my debt to Matsuda’s insightful analysis of France’s self-understanding through conventions of courtly love, I am unconvinced by his corollary that Loti in Madame Chrysanthème implies a vision of Japan as “a materially progressive yet empty land like Prussia, seduced by industrial modernity—and soon—patriotic militarists . . . a devious and heartless land, somewhat like Germany” (“Tears,” 35), which seems supported less by Loti’s text than by hindsight: “within a generation Japan astonished Europe with an industrializing economy, rational administration, and medical and educational advances” (39). Instead, I would argue that Matsuda’s paradigm of Prussianness fits Loti as he is characterized by Régamey as aggressive, insensitive, vulgar, acquisitive, “materially progressive yet empty,” and, as Matsuda notes, a failure at Frenchness because he is incapable of romantic love for Chrysanthème (“Tears,” 45). 101. The status of the bachelor is identified as “the problem of bourgeoisÂ� society” by Jean Bourie (Le Célibataire français [Paris: Sagittaire, 1976], 21). Robert Nye notes that fatherhood—passing a legacy to a competent next generation—was crucial to bourgeois definitions of masculinity: “In effect, honor was embodied in bourgeois men as a set of normative sexual characteristics and desires that reflected the strategies of bourgeois social reproduction. A man who deviated from these standards by choice or by ‘nature’ dishonored himself and brought shame to his family—a judgment applied with equal severity to both the bachelor and the homosexual” (Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993], 9, emphasis in original). Nye reports that anxieties about masculinity were especially acute after the debacle of the Franco-Prussian War (79). 102. Josse [pseud. for Lucien Falize], “L’Art japonais à propos de l’éxposition organisée par M. Gonse,” Revue des arts décoratifs 3 (1882–1883): 330. 103. Oscar Wilde, Intentions, Complete Works (Boston: Wyman-Fogg, Co., n.d.), vol. 7, 47–48. 104. Thomas Beebee, The Ideology of Genre (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 115–116. 105. Kawakami, Travellers’ Visions, 37, 44, 46. Proust was an enthusiastic reader of Loti’s around 1887–1888 (Hokenson, Japan, France, and East-West Aesthetics, 206; on Proust and Japan, see 204–224). 106. Félix Régamey, L’Enseignement du dessin aux Etats-Unis (Paris: Librairie Ch. Delagrave, 1881). 107. Onoto Watanna, “A Half Caste,” Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly 48 (September

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1899): 489–496. Also in 1899, Eaton, as Watanna, published Miss Numè of Japan, a rewrite of John Luther Long’s 1895 Miss Cherry Blossom of Tokyo. Eaton was the Canadianborn daughter of a Chinese mother and a Canadian father. 108. Yone Noguchi, Miss Morning Glory: The American Diary of a Japanese Girl, 1902, rpt. as The American Diary of a Japanese Girl, ed. Edward Marx and Laura E. Franey (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007), 8–9, 119–120. The invocation of the happy nightingale probably alludes to the novel A Japanese Nightingale published by Onoto Watanna in 1901 with illustrations by Genjiro Yeto, an expatriate Japanese artist who also illustrated Miss Morning Glory. Noguchi was acquainted—and competitive—with Eaton/Watanna, whom he believed to be half Japanese. The irony of his rewriting of Loti is heightened by the fact that he acted much like the sailor abroad, leaving his own “temporary bride” and child behind when he returned to Japan; the boy grew up to be the sculptor Isamu Noguchi. 109. Pierre Loti, “Un Bal à Edo,” Japoneries d’automne, 102. Akutagawa Ryunosuke, “The Ball,” trans. Seiji M. Lippit, in The Essential Akutagawa, ed. Seiji M. Lippit (New York: Marsilo, 1999), 76, 78. For a comparative analysis of these two texts, see David Rosenfeld, “Counter-Orientalism and Textual Play in Akutagawa’s ‘The Ball’ (‘Butokai’),” Japan Forum 12, no. 1 (2000): 53–63. 110. Akutagawa at the period he wrote “The Ball” was antagonistic toward what the Japanese called the “I-novel” (a term derived from the German Ich Roman), upholding formal elegance over the appeal of sensational confessional. On Akutagawa and the “I novel” see Donald Keene, Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of the Modern Era (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984), vol. 1, 506–593; and Kinya Tsuruta, “Akutagawa Ryunosuke and I-Novelists,” Monumenta Nipponica, 25, nos.1/2 (1970): 13–27. 111. That such self-consciousness about pastiche might impose itself on authors attempting to rewrite Loti is suggested by the appearance of a similar passage in Noguchi’s Miss Morning Glory. Here the narrator rips up her essay “Things Seen in the Street” explaining, “I didn’t come to Amerikey to be critical, that is, to act mean, did I?” When she later pulls the scraps from her wastebasket, however, the snatches of prose offer a fragmented Japanese critique of American society (36–37). 112. Philippe Curval, “Un Souvenir de Pierre Loti,” in the anthology L’Utopie 75 (Paris: Editions Robert Laffont, 1975), 185. The story concerns a character named Pierre Loti who visits a planet called Nopal (an anagram for “Japon” with the j transposed to l). The anagram for l’utopie sadly does not work in translation: “There is an anagram in utopia; it’s Loti stinks.” 113. Régamey’s text echoes Duret’s condemnations of the Japanese imitating Western art (Critique d’avant-garde, 243). Nor were such attitudes confined to the French. Régamey’s polemic about Japanese schoolchildren being taught Western drawing skills echoes a speech published as a pamphlet by Charles Holme: “It appears from consular reports that large quantities of slates and slate pencils are now being imported into Japan for use in schools. I recently saw in the art school in Kioto, students copying in lead pencil from Vere Foster’s drawing books. These are fatal mistakes and, if persisted in, will materially prejudice the character of all the future art work of Japan” (“The Influence of Japanese Art on English Design” [Warrington Literary and Philosophical Society, 1890], 25). 114. For example, Burty, “Poterie,” 388. 115. To identify submissive femininity as a period stereotype is not to imply that it was—or still is—untrue in all cases or limited to the late nineteenth century. Donald Richie’s 1980 essay “The City Home,” first published in the Japan Society Newsletter,

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describes the Japanese “housewife” in her claustrophobic dwelling: “If she seldom complains, it is only because Japanese women seldom complain about anything” (in Donald Richie, A Lateral View: Essays on Contemporary Japan [Tokyo: Japan Times, 1987], 48). Richie is not as uncritical as nineteenth-century observers. His 1976 article “Women in Japanese Cinema” records a conversation with the director Chiro Toyoda. When Richie asks why Japanese women are better actresses than Japanese men, “he said that it was only natural: the Japanese woman from childhood is forced to play a role—more so than in most countries. She is her father’s daughter, then her husband’s wife, then her son’s mother. From the earliest age she learns to mask her true feelings and to counterfeit those she does not feel” (Richie, Lateral View, 152). Richie goes on: “In Japan, more often than not, the women also seem to subscribe to the rightness of their own oppression. . . . Sincerely, cynically, or hopelessly they collaborate” (153). 116. Alice Heine, as she was born, married the Duke of Richelieu a few days after her seventeenth birthday in 1875; he died five years later. She went on to marry, and then divorce, the Prince of Monaco. 117. A dinner given by Count Matsuka is described in Edmond de Goncourt’s journal for 31 October 1878; the artist was probably Watanabe Shotei (Floyd, “Japonisme in Context,” 235–237). Goncourt also alludes to the Japanese officials’ unwillingness to sell items from their displays (Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, Journal: Mémoires de la vie littéraire, ed. Robert Ricatte, vol. 2 [Paris: Fasquelle and Flammarion, 1956], 802–803). More details on Matsukata’s role at the Exposition Universelle are given in Haru Matsukata Reischauer, Samurai and Silk: A Japanese and American Heritage (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), 81–83. My thanks to Wakami Shimizu of the Consulate General of Japan in Chicago for confirming this information. 118. Pierre Loti, “La Femme japonaise,” L’Exilée (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1893), 228– 229. 119. Loti, Madame Prune, 33, 102, 201, 112, 77; see also 141. Schwartz in 1927 argued that “the contempt for the Japanese expressed in Loti’s books in some measure influenced the Russians to refuse Japan’s request and led to the war of 1904” (Imaginative Interpretation,131). 120. The most egregious examples of passing off Loti’s words as new are Kegan Paul’s reissues of Loti’s Japanese novels under new titles: Laura Ensor’s 1889 translation of Madame Chrysanthème under the title Japan in 1985 and the 1905 Madame Prune as Japan and Corea in 2002. Without acknowledging earlier editions, the advertising for Japan and Corea rehearses century-old clichés for contemporary readers, promising that “the world’s most prolific, romantic and exotic travel writer” will reveal how “two little Japanese maidens sing and dance for his sole pleasure” and describe “the lonely wood by the deserted temple, where he keeps a daily tryst with a Japanese child love.” 121. Debates over Kenneth Rexroth’s acclaimed Love Poems of Marichiko (Santa Barbara: Christopher’s Books, 1978), written in the voice of a young Japanese woman he claimed to be translating, offers an earlier example of this dynamic among poetry specialists.Â�

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Part I the pink notebook

of Madame Chrysanthème by félix régamey

Fig. 13. Kawanabe Kyosai, Félix Régamey, 1876, from Emile Guimet, Promenades japonaises, vol. 2: Tokio-Nikko (Paris: G. Charpentier, 1880).

the pink notebook

of Madame Chrysanthème by félix régamey

Notes on the Translation This translation preserves Régamey’s nineteenth-century francophone romanizations of Japanese terms; thus, “Tokio-Chimboum” (Tokyo newspaper), rather than either Tokyo (Tokyo¯ ) or shinbun; Samouraï, rather than samurai; guécha rather than geisha, and so forth. All ellipses are in the original; nothing has been omitted from this translation. All footnotes in the original text have been preserved as they were in the original. Additional notes that I have supplied are signed with my initials. Christopher Reed

. . . If you could take the light from the eyes of a Sister of Mercy at her gracious task, the smile of a maiden looking over the seas for her lover, and the heart of an unspoiled child, and materialize them into a winsome and healthy little body, crowned with a mass of jet-black hair and dressed in bright rustling silks, you would have the typical Japanese woman. * Henry Norman

* Régamey’s epigraph, which was translated into French, is from Henry Norman, The Real Japan: Studies of Contemporary Japanese Manners, Morals, Administration and Politics (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1891), 178. [cr]

PREFACE

The Japanese Soul and the Japan of Monsieur Pierre Loti

“Remove this monkey business!” said Louis XIV, disdainfully touching with his cane some of those superb paintings of the Dutch school that are the glory of museums today. And now comes a famous French author to prove, by his writings on Japan, an incompetence equal to that of the great king—and with the same pomposity. No doubt this incompetence is not clear to all eyes; the brilliant style, the charming descriptions veil the author’s rancor and prejudice so that the impression produced for the casual reader is, on the whole, not so terrible. It is not the same for those well acquainted with the country. And the indignation of all those who appreciate beauty in whatever latitude they find it may be compared to what a good Christian would feel upon reading an “interview” with God the father—if such a story were possible. Suppose that that reporter complacently described him as an old gentleman with a white beard—as we see illustrated in gothic missals— surrounded by chubby-cheeked cherubim blowing trumpets, and that he dwelt over certain particularities that he delighted in vulgarizing. What a scandal that would be for pious souls and what suffering they would undergo to see the object of their devotion treated irreverently! It is much the same with the effect produced on devotees of Japan by the prose of Monsieur Pierre Loti.

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Is that to say that everything is admirable in the Empire of the Rising Sun? Absolute perfection is not of this world, and there, as elsewhere, there is room for more than quibbles over details, especially if one considers the present. I am looking over a series of small notebooks that were sent from Japan along with other objects for the last universal exposition in Paris by the Monbusho, the ministry for public instruction. These are works by public school students there. Writing, math, geometry, history, geography, all the subjects taught in European scholarly establishments are represented in these notebooks. I take from one of these the childish account of a little girl, a student in public school no. 29 in Kyoto. A Walk among the Plane Trees “One Sunday, after having worked hard at school, I went for a little walk among the plane trees at Harasi Yama. My parents having granted permission, I set out with my little brotherÂ� and my nanny. The valley was cool and the view very pretty. The leaves of the trees, reddened by autumn, were richly colored. Along the way there were many others taking the walk, and I met several of my good friends from school who were going, like me, to get some air in the woods. We had a lovely time there chasing pretty butterflies and gathering wildflowers. Then we returned home because my parents were waiting dinner for us. What pleasure I had on that day! I have written these lines in order to keep the memory of this pleasant little walk.” Signed: Tané-Osaka, age 11½

These notebooks not only teach us that children’s language is the same everywhere, but instruct us also in the new methods adopted to teach drawing; looking them over, we see the work of boys and girls in different primary school classes. Whether these classes are advanced or intermediate, everywhere the same kind of things have served as models for these unfortunate children: cooking pot, cap, school desk, etc., the same “everyday object” lifeless and expressionless, that has been so overused here, but that, happily, we are starting to leave behind. The worst is that for these studies, the use of the brush—that admirable tool, both so supple and so strong, the national tool—has not been preserved. It is our dry lead

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pencil and smudgy, sticky wax crayon that are awkwardly used by these misguided little Japanese. Beneath its apparent insignificance, this important detail exemplifies the many manifestations of the distressing phenomenon noted by several experts who, from a distance, follow with anxious sympathy the incursion of Western civilization in Japan.1 How can one avoid suffering at seeing people who seem to have lost the awareness of their artistic worth, who trample underfoot the genius of their race, who defer to and honor our garish works—in oil!— and exhaust themselves trying to follow us on our ground, where they demonstrate an inferiority equal only to our own when we go adventuring on theirs. Over here as well as over there, this is a point that escapes more than one of us. Thus it is that, thinking to please me, a friend a little while ago gave me some small landscapes by a Tokyo artist: runny watercolors, in the insipid style of chromos, on rag paper, perfect specimens of the consumptive art we find in our classes of young ladies, having kept nothing of the subtle, clear style of earlier Japanese images. And it is also thus that one could see the theater critic of a major Parisian newspaper go to war against the license an author allowed himself in adapting the work of an ancient Greek poet, though he remained perfectly calm in the presence of equally despicable license taken by another author who brought to the stage a travesty of Japan. If Japan seems to forfeit the rights of respect shown to Greece, it is simply because we are ignorant of one while the other is trotted out again and again. Nevertheless, numerous and notable works have been published on this empire, principally in England. In France we have those of Monsieur Pierre Loti, the ungrateful, deplorable friend of Madame Chrysanthème. His incomprehensible penchant for denigration seems made to confound anyone, other than this sailor, who has experienced Japan. He has simply glanced from the bridge of 1. But it seems likely, instead of Japan converting us, we shall pervert Japan. Our contact has already tainted the dress, the houses, the pictures, the life generally, of the upper classes. It is to the common people that one must now go for the old tradition of sober beauty and proportion. You want flowers arranged? Ask your house-coolie. There is something wrong in the way the garden is laid out? It looks too formal, and yet your proposed alteration would turn it into a formless maze? Call in the cook or the washerman as counselors. b. h. chamberlain (Things Japanese) [in english in original. cr]

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his warship and then pronounced: “this singular fatherland of all preposterousness!!!”2 Preposterous! . . . That superb land where the colossal pine of noble stature is married to the light and capricious bamboo; where all year long flowers spread their enchantment: there is the pink snow of the cherry trees tumbling down the hills . . . there are the purple camellias, the gold lilies, the slender flowering grasses that clothe so many footpaths and thickets . . . there is the inexhaustible variety of chrysanthemums that delight the West, which, until recently, knew only a stunted, drab species of this plant.3 Preposterous! . . . That grandiose and elegant architecture, the feudal Siro, the fortified castle with thick walls that plunge into a deep moat and raise a tragic silhouette against the sky, and the Buddhist temples with their dazzling decorations, sumptuous dwellings of this most tolerant of religions,4 where the priests, who were great artists, have, inside and out and from foundation to roofline, gathered gold and silk, bronze, red and black lacquer, enamels and paintings, 2. This is the last line of Loti’s dedication. [cr] 3. The first impression made on any fairly observant person landing in Japan is the extraordinary variety of the vegetation. No wonder that the number of known species of trees and plants (exclusive of mosses and other low organism [sic]) rises to the enormous figure of two thousand seven hundred and forty three, distributed over an unusually large number of genera, while it is almost certain that further investigations will raise the figure considerably, the northern portion of the country having been as yet but imperfectly explored. b. h. chamberlain (Things Japanese)[in english in original. cr] 4. . . . I may here mention as evidence of the liberality of the Buddhists, that when Lady Parkes applied to the high priest of Shiba, for permission to have the church of EnglandÂ� service performed in one of the chapels connected with his great shrine, her request was at once granted. Hence Christian worship is offerd [sic] every Sunday in this greatest of Buddhist temple [sic]. . . . The impression which I now receive upon first beholding the magnificent temples (Shiba) and shrines standing before me as we step from our carriage is most delightful. Buildings so rich in colour, so beautiful in detail, so striking in symbolism, I have never before seen, or even dreamt of. Had a Gibbons been employed on the wood-carving, had the colourist of the Alhambra done his utmost to add to forms which in themselves are almost perfect, a new charm trough [sic] the addition of pigment, and were the whole of such detail subordinated to fitting places in as vast architectural edifices by the architects of the Parthenon, no more worthy effect could be produced than that of the buildings on which my eyes now rest. . . . On this memorable day, I learnt many facts of deep interest, and I have certainly beheld, enshrined in cryptomerias and other conebearing trees of vast proportion, an amount of architectural beauty, such as I have never before seen. christopher dresser (Japan; Its Architecture, Art and Art Manufacture) [in english in original. cr]

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carved the wood to sculpt capitals that are integral to the heavy pillars they surmount, and all of this so dignified as to be compared with our most beautiful cathedrals! Preposterous! . . . These metalworkers, these armorers, these goldsmiths, these engravers, these sculptors and these painters responsible for works only the lesser examples of which have traveled here and of which the finest examples must be seen framed by their settings, such as the Daïboutz [large Buddha] of Kamakura, a metal giant gilded in so pure a style, and all these objects of daily life in ivory, in porcelain, in bronze, etc. Preposterous! . . . These heroes and heroines who equal in courage and virtue everything majestic and beautiful our history and our mythology offer us! We must pity the superficial mind that could not see all that and equally the would-be artists who could grasp only the flat caricature of a civilization still so fertile in sober and delicate beauty,5 and who amused themselves by representing the Japanese grappling with devices foreign to their mores and traditions, as ridiculous a spectacle as there is! They have beaten a path in the forty years since the day when Mr. T. Harris, representative of the United States, debarked at Simoda to execute the treaty imposed by commodore Parry [sic]. In that time, the Japanese, lacking the right information, exchangedÂ� their gold for silver—at equal weight! Today the same is true in the moral and intellectual sphere. Where will this path take them? Only the future will tell. It is to be hoped that a people who love nature, artists to their bones, have not lost their ideal and that they too will have their Renaissance. For nothing remains of their feudal culture, nor of what, by analogy, one might call their gothic art. It was about our own that these lines were written in the Revue bleue: 5. Japanese taste in painting, in furniture, in floral decoration, in all matters depending on line and form may by [sic] summed up in one word: sobriety. The bluster which mistakes bigness for greatness, the vulgarity which smothers beauty under ostentation and extravagance, have no place in the Japanese way of thinking. The alcove of a Tokio or Kioto drawing-room holds one picture and one flower-vase, which are changed from time to time. To be sure, picture and vase alike are exquisite. . . . When will Europe learn afresh from Japan that lesson of proportion, of fitness, of sobriety, which Greece once knew so well? b. h. chamberlain (Things Japanese) [in english in original. cr]

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The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème

In the Middle Ages, there was no trace of the artist. The painter, the sculptor were just what they always should have been: workers giving their best to the work commissioned of them. The vain struggle for originality, for personality, which is currently ruining the art of our time, did not torment them. They did not strive to innovate; that came almost unwittingly, propelled by the unconscious force of their natural temperament.

This “gothic soul,” as the author calls it, applies perfectly to the Japanese soul. Still today, for those who can see, a soul can be found in the humblest products leaving the hands of Japanese artisans,6 imperfect as they may be, quickly made in bulk from ever cruder materials and destined for the European market. The problem of making something from nothing, solved by made-in-Paris products, seems also to have found a solution over there. These arrive as cargo recalling the discount goods we send to the people of the dark continent, and in both cases the same disdain for the recipient governs their dispatch. Despite all this, the Japanese soul has not died—hypnotized by Western power, it just remains in a coma—it will revive one day.  Japan, which finds passionate admirers in France, had not hitherto met, among its rare detractors, someone of the stature of Monsieur Pierre Loti. Naval officer, literary man—and how!—painter of miniatures, with a feminine grace, decorator of fans for the fashionable, he is listened to and taken at his word no matter the elaborations he is pleased to embroider on the depicted subjects. Nevertheless, port-of-call observations have their perils and lend themselves to error. The disappointed love confessed to us in “Madame Chrysanthème” may not be unrelated to the false attractions widely advertised—for such a beautiful country and its inhabitants—in the standard historiography of superficial exotic beauty. 6. Mr. Percival Lowel [sic] truly observe [sic] that, To stroll down the “Broadway” of Tokyo of an evening is a liberal education in every day art, for—as he adds,—Watever [sic] these people fashion, from the toy of an hour to the triumphs of all time, is touched by a taste unknown elsewhere. b. h. chamberlain (Things Japanese) [in english in original. cr]

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Oh! he treats the poor Japanese harshly! They have earned, however, an incontestable right to the world’s admiration.7 They do not have, it is true, the wily skill of the Chinese; they have never dreamed of gratifying Europe with a lettered general responsible for diplomatic affairs and for ceaselessly singing their praises at our expense. They are more modest. Out of courtesy and in recognition of the service they have rendered to our arts, is it not now right that those among us who really know them come to their defense and reassert the facts? Of this Japan, those who have really seen it and known how to appreciate it have returned with lasting memories that govern and enrich an entire life. Mental impressions are intimately combined here with physical sensations, and the peppery scent of the islands of the Far East follows across the seas to evoke both people and things for those who have been there. And they suffer to see the gilded or flowered robes of the gods and women there stained with peevish ink. He is surely to be pitied, the friend annoyed by Madame Chrysanthème, for having been overtaken by the sad hyperexcitability that made him parade a British spleen across the most laughing nation in the world. To this infirmity must be attributed “the exasperation provoked in him by the ugliness of this people,” as well as the inspiration for his appreciations along the lines of “gongs and wooden clappers, guitars, flutes; all these grate, groan, and clash with extraordinary strangeness and a sadness that gives you shivers,” or again, “Let’s move on, all this smells of the yellow race, mildew and death.”8 Where did the melancholic friend of Madame Chrysanthème ever 7. In the days before japanese [sic] ideas become know [sic] to Europe people there [sic] used to consider it essential to have the patterns on plate [sic], cushions and what not, arranged with geometrical accuracy. It [sic] on the right hand there was a cupid looking to the left, then on the left hand there must be a cupid of exactly the same size looking to the right, ond [sic] the chief feature of the design was invariably in the exact centre. The Japanese artisan-artist have [sic] shown us that the mechanical symmetry does not make for beauty. They have thaught [sic] us the charme [sic] of irregularity, and if the world owe [sic] them but this one lesson, Japan may yet proud [sic] of what she has accomplished. b. h. chamberlain (Things Japanese) [in english in original. cr] 8. These quotations (the first is actually a paraphrase) are from Loti’sÂ�articles describing the Japanese cities he visited when his ship was posted back to Japan just a few weeks after leaving Nagasaki harbor, where Madame Chrysanthème is set; these articles were anthologized as Japoneries d’automne (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1889); quotations from 280, 25, 60. [cr]

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see shops hung with black cloth that he insists on comparing to funeral drapery?9 In reality the fabrics are banners on which one can read in clear characters the names of various businesses. Never are they black, never are they draped. For this purpose, the Japanese use fabrics dyed usually with a beautiful indigo blue; some are brown; the tobacco stores alone display red ones. We do not believe that all this creates a funereal effect or gives, in the author’s words, the idea of “general mourning.” Elsewhere the tram in which, he takes care to tell us, “he is riding for the first time in his life,” upsets him, and his fellow riders inspire this expression of disgust: “How I regret, my god, having strayed into this vehicle of the people.” See him dabbing with his handkerchief at his aristocrat’s nose in order to fight off the unpleasant smell “of rancid camellia oil, of wild animals, of the yellow race!”10 Imagination plays a great role in all this, for the Japanese race, thanks to its hygiene, its exquisite sense of cleanliness, its daily hot baths, and its vegetarian diet, is distinguished from all other peoples for its lack of odor.11 But isn’t Madame Chrysanthème’s pitiable friend a stylist without equal? Nevertheless, who among us can be sure of penetrating his intimate thoughts in this sentence taken from a description of Tokyo: “The city occupies a sort of vast rolling plain; its several hills, too small to make any good effect at all, are just sufficient to cast it into disorder.”12 And we too, closing our eyes, recall this scene: sitting under the scarlet gateway of the iaski of the French military mission, we see unroll a superb panorama at our feet. There is the imperial castle, the Siro; its high walls plunge into a deep moat full of pink lotuses, and its immense garden of ancient foliage on the horizon joins a sea of pale blue lost in a silvered mist. And here are whole districts, the complicated network of canals with arched bridges, and everywhere an eager and colorful crowd goes, comes, hurries, gathers; finally, farther away, in a verdant suburbanÂ� 9. Loti, Japoneries d’automne, 280. [cr] 10. Loti, Japoneries d’automne, 282–283. [cr] 11. Some of the inhabitants of a certain village famed for its hot springs excused themselves to the present writer for their dirtiness during the busy summer months: “for,” said they, “we have only time to bathe twice a day.” “How often, then do you bathe in winter?” “Oh! about four or five time [sic] daily. The children get into bath [sic] whenever they feel cold.” b. h. chamberlain (Things Japanese) [in english in original. cr] 12. Loti, Japoneries d’automne, 278. [cr]

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corner, there is a little house valued above all others for it is the residence of Kiosaï, the great artist who is our friend. . . . The misunderstanding, the errors of detail, the optical illusions that turn blue into black—all that would be nothing and one could still agree with him; one might even excuse an outburst this strong: “More and more I understand the horror of the Japanese shared by EuropeansÂ�who have long studied them on the spot in Japan!”13 which is nothing but a bald-faced lie.14 Where this becomes more serious is when, abandoning himself completely to the disparaging prejudice that animates him, Madame Chrysanthème’s misguided friend encompasses an entire nation in the most insulting accusations. Daring to speak of an “honest family establishment, run by an old Monsieur Nippon, his wife of a certain age, and three amiable girls, his young women who here as everywhere are for sale, just like things” is worse than calumny. To deserve to be treated so rudely, they must have changed a great deal since the time when Saint Francis Xavier said of them: “As much as I can judge, the Japanese surpass in virtue and probity all nations hitherto discovered; they have a gentle character, opposed to trickery, and strongly committed to honors that they prize above all things. Poverty is common among them without being in any way dishonorable, although it distresses them.” Let us return to Madame Chrysanthème. Who has not smiled over this sentence in the dedication:Â�“Although the longest part is given to Madame Chrysanthème, it is quite certain that the three principal characters are Myself, Japan, and the Effect this country produced on me.” This declaration has not only the effect of amusing anyone who is in the least up to date with the issue—artist, merchant, common tourist or simple sailor, here I appeal to “my brother Yves” himself— 13. Loti, Japoneries d’automne, 280. [cr] 14. The Japanese from the interior of the country show great regard for the European traveler, who remains an object of interest for them, arousing in their simple minds a sympathy born of curiosity and goodwill. One rediscovers there a bit of patriarchal mores and the traditional hospitality of ancient peoples. From the little servant girl at the inn, always polite and smiling with the graceful charm of a pretty knickknack, to the innkeeper himself who gets lost in deep bows, endlessly repeated to the point of obsession, everyone is welcoming and you feel enveloped in an atmosphere of warm benevolence. The peasant, the guide, the innkeeper surround you with respectful attention. dr. michaut (Le Japon inconnnu, Figaro of 7 Oct. 93)

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but more then one among them would have liked to see Montaigne’s saying “This is a book written in good faith” inscribed upside down to head the text. That would not have been excessive for the reader ignorant of Japan, and it would have been more honest. For ultimately, what do we see in this work? Proper names intentionally turned from their true meaning by their translation. The names of people that the Japanese sometimes borrow from the various realms of nature are not composed simply of words used to designate objects. These words do not alone make names, but are augmented by a particle that, in some way, ennobles them or by another name that completes them. Thus for girls bearing the name of snow or of the moon, they do not say simply Yuki or Isuki, but O-Yuki or O-Isuki. It is the same for Miss Jasmine, Miss Campanula, Miss Jonquil, who will be O-Sen, OKio, O-Yoshi, and Madame Plum will not be Me but On-Mè. And here are translations of masculine names: Monsieur Sugar, Sâto; CherryTree, Sakura-Marou; Pigeon, Hata-horo; Bindweed, Sen-Ka; Gold, Kin-no-ské; Bamboo, Taki-sabouro. For a girl one would say O-Také. As for Kangaroo, this is a completely different matter, for there is no Japanese equivalent, this animal being unknown in Nippon. Monsieur Loti was undoubtedly amused by the sound he used to ridicule his character. There is, in fact, a proper name, without meaning: Kan-Kou-rô, from which he could have made Kangaroo, leaving us to believe this to be an accurate translation as with the names of some of his other characters. Some people faint at the scent of flowers, others hate music, despise poetry, dislike painting. At least these people are usually aware of their inferiority and do not lend themselves to pure defamation in order to demonstrate that they alone are right in contrast with the rest of the world. Paul Bourget has written these lines about Corfu: “. . . Verdant island that I may never see again, if you had given me only the richness of several of these mornings passed on your coast, your name would remain sacred to me forever, and when I remember you, one passage from the noble and sad Flaubert sings in my memory: There are even spots on the earth so beautiful that you want to hold them next to your heart!” I might have liked to have written those lines—to speak like Monsieur Loti—they apply so well to “Myself, Japan, and the Effect it produced on me.”

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DEDICATION

To my dear Godmother, the Countess MATSOUKATA, Ambassadress in Paris You were indulgent and kind to your little Chrysanthème, and so gentle at that period a thousand times blessed when she, so young, was your humble servant. By your example as much as by your lessons you taught me to be docile, the first duty of woman and the most appreciated of her charms. Alas, I am no longer a child. I am twenty years old and my experience of life has already been very harsh. With the sincerity you will recognize, I have retraced for you alone, day by day, the events that marked a poignant phase of my existence, and I dedicate to you without fear this little notebook I so often watered with my tears. . . . Not for an instant have I tried to battle against my fate, against the urgings of my heart. I tried to do good; if I have not succeeded, you at least will not withhold forgiveness, I am certain of that. I have under my pillow in the drawer of the makoura a photograph, a snapshot taken on the sly by that silly girl Oyouki: a man before a mirror, seen from behind, absorbed in contemplating himself. Nothing else is left to me of the man who, all one summer long, held my heart in his hard hands—oh how hard they were! My friends finally called him the Perfumed Rhinoceros. That was too much. But how could that stranger claim the empire of my soul,

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which he never seemed to have the curiosity to penetrate and which he never succeeded in understanding? That is what I cannot explain. Moreover, I do not try to understand, not any more. The Chinese may be right to treat the men who come from the Occident as barbarians and red devils—Â�although he was brown—and we may be wrong to welcome them and to want to imitate them. Is that not nearly what you told me once? Today, more than ever, you must be able to judge them, now that you see them at close quarters. But what is this to me now? Something is broken in me; my dream was too beautiful, against all reason; only a miracle might have made it come true, and I was most unworthy. I read in the Tokio-Chimboum that Count Matsoukata’s mission to Europe will soon come to an end. What happiness it would be for me to see you again! This hope is all that can console me in my distress. With great respect, my dear Godmother, I am your humble and devoted servant until death. Chrysanthème

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3 July 1885 eturning home, I found Oyouki, my little neighbor,Â� trembling and all upset, and that worsened the anxiety I felt about not seeing her at the party at the GardenÂ�of Flowers, where we were supposed to meet. This is what happened: A big European naval ship arrived yesterday; out of it came blue men with bare necks; in groups they invaded the town, burstingÂ�into the houses with their booming voices, as they doubtless do in their country. Three of them, having rented horses, were gallopingÂ�recklessly along the road Oyouki was takingÂ� to come meet me. Very frightened at the sight of these men, she quickly threw herself off the side of the road in order to avoid them and, tangled in her robe, rolled to the bottom of the ditch. The strange horsemen were far away by the time Oyouki, her hair disheveled, her hands bleeding, got up and without further mishap retraced her steps. They don’t seem to be around here any more, and we are very peacefully gathered on the balcony, where there is a wonderful view of the sea through the twisted branches of the old trees. We chatter. To console Oyouki over her misadventure, I tell her about the party she missed, and, taking up my samisen, I try to rememberÂ� some of the songs she did not hear. The famous artist our

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friends brought to the Garden of Flowers knew some really lovely ones. Ordinarily it is enough for me to hear a tune once to remember it, but today memory fails. My errant soul is elsewhere. . . . Down there in the bay, above a still, black mass, floats a tricolored banner. . . . In order not to remind Oyouki of her mishap that day, and giving in to I don’t know what indefinable feeling, I said nothing to her about the handsome naval officer I had caught sight of. They had put him in the room next to the one where we were playing our music. Clothed in white linen with two gold braids on his equally white cap, which set off his complexion and brown hair, he seemed a little agitated—as all foreigners are. Nevertheless, this man had deep eyes that remained locked on mine. Oyouki bore no grudge against these blue men whose racket frightened her so: everywhere sailors are a little coarse, and these knew nothing of our ways. And what did we know? “The toad dreaming in the bottom of the well knows nothing of the Universe.” In Europe, as in Japan, there are poets, artists, and scholars who are intelligent and sensitive . . . like ours. Those I would like to meet, but even so, not all sailors are alike. The first one that I saw was blond and very ugly, I think, but so gracious; respectful of our customs, he never failed to take off his shoes before coming in. He did not stay very long at Nagasaki, he wrote and sketched a lot. I remember that he made me taste jams brought from his own country. I was very young then, and my father told me, “That’s an Englishman.” The one I am thinking of now is French.  5 July Oh madness! I have come a long way since the instant my gaze met Monsieur Loti’s! For I know his name now. Ah! Yes, I am mad: I saw only him and I dreamt of him at night. . . . It was hard to describe; sometimes I felt shaken from head to foot. . . . It was painful and so sweet. . . . I hear that he is going to marry that silly little O-Sen; Kan-KourôÂ�Â�Â�—an evil man—arranged this marriage, and the introductions will take place tomorrow. Several people will attend, and I will try to be there. Why? I have no reason to hide now that everything is arranged with another. How could I have imagined that this traveler could have something

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in common with me! He frightened me and attracted me at the same time; it was like a spell. When I saw him the second time, he was taking the deep little path that runs along the house; I had just time to hide behind a tree so that he would not see me. He was talking animatedly, his hand resting on the shoulder of a larger man who seemed to listen to him deferentially, although he shook his head occasionally like someone who was not easily convinced. At last they turned off the path and disappeared into the bamboo groves. . . .  9 July I am his wife! . . . No matter how many times I repeat these words, I cannot believe it. . . . Nevertheless, it is so. I am no longer mad at KanKou-rô, who did this, and I am sorry to have been mean to little O-sen, to whom I was preferred. She was nevertheless perfectly elegant in her gray robe embroidered with pale roses and butterflies. His wife! Today I will come with him to the house he has chosen up there on the hill near the cemetery. A few of my things are already there. I made my devotions to Benten, and we are registered with the police officials. It is a beautiful, clear morning. It is still spring since the ototoguis, the bird of April, has not yet left, and I am happy to be alive; but I must not show it too much. Three days have passed since that memorable evening; beginning at sunset, it lasted all the way until ten o’clock, for it took some time for Kan-Kou-rô to break with Mademoiselle O-Sen, more than to unite Pierre and me. Hidden behind the others, I wore my blue dress, color of the night, strewn with wildflowers; two very simple pins in my hair. I had come to watch, and I would have difficulty saying what happened right up to the moment when, feeling faint and making my way out, I felt someone rather suddenly grasp my wrist. I found myself brought right up before Him, and my blood, which had frozen in my veins, flooded my heart. I thought I would collapse. But He took my hand, the man who was next to him—I recognized him from the little path—did the same, and I understood that he paid me a compliment in introducing his friend to me. They asked me a question, I had to answer yes. . . . Without the semiviolence of Kan-Kou-rô in bringing me before Him,

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doubtless none of this would have happened. Will I soon come to find this ugly Kan-Kou-rô handsome? We needed my mother’s permission: he went about getting it; but this was only a formality, for my dear mother sees only through my eyes and does everything I want. Moreover, I am about to be nineteen. How old I am! With what happiness I consented. It must be luck that has done all this, and how I bless that luck! Everyone said good night and we all went our separate ways.  10 July Splendid night; the stars shine with incomparable brilliance; never have the crickets sung so happily. . . . I am shattered.  11 July Now I am living my dream. . . . From our house the view is even more beautiful than from my house yesterday. The house is covered with greenery; the garden is full of flowers and shrubs cleverly arranged on tiny mounds, and a brook of clear water twists and turns in thin cascades among the mossy rocks, mountains in miniature. My room is just as I wanted it: the karakamis are dazzlingly white, like the mats on the floor, the tatamis; the beams of the ceiling are of pink wood, of hinaki, very fine quality, marvelously veined; my samisen is hung above the little case where my books are: historical novels and various manuals useful for mousmé↜s, especially those that deal with the art of arranging flowers and displaying them in vases. I put vases of flowers everywhere; I am quite satisfied with my handiwork. And then I placed on its pedestal in the tokonoma, between two bronze lanterns, Benten, a little statue in gilded wood, a cherished relic that came to me from my grandparents. This is the good goddess of the sea, protector of lovers; she is in her rightful place here and is still more precious to me today. I will pray ceaselessly for her to protect and inspire me. In the room next door, lacquered trunks that hold my dresses; I have twelve, as many as there are hours in the day; that is not a lot to please the eyes of the man you love. . . . We were once richer. After the revolution, my father, who was a high Samouraï, had to leave the service of his lord, Prince Satzouma; a mysterious sadness seized his spirit; he no longer

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cared at all for his struggling house and failing fortune, and soon he died, consumed by the grief of seeing foreigners seize his whole country. What would he think of me now? I tremble a bit in wondering . . .Â� But no, women have nothing to do with politics; the heart is everything for them. Beneath a hard and haughty exterior, my father hid great kindness. He would understand; he would pardon me. My mother was a guécha in Kioto when he was captivated by her. Nothing could conquer their love; there have been songs and plays written that describe and dramatize all the obstacles lovers must overcome before marrying. Having suffered, he would have taken pity on my suffering. So chase away these ugly ideas. Pierre is my master, I have only to please him; I love him, and he can do with me as he wills.  12 July I am a little tired from having run around the city all day yesterday with my Pierre and his sailor in a jinriksha. We got home very late, and during the night we were kept awake by the rats and mice that make a great racket all over the roof of the house. He seemed very upset by it and, pulling away from me, went out and leaned on the rail of the balcony. So absorbed in his thought, it seemed I no longer existed for Him. Damnable mice! In the end I could no long bear it; I slid up next to him and, throwing my trembling arms around his neck, brought him back beside me under the mosquito netting.  13 July Yves has become my good friend; he does not lack tact, though his manners are rough; his cheerful racket, which does not exclude a certain delicacy, brings a bit of life to the house, which is so calm when my Pierre is alone with me. The sadness that seized him last night has not lifted; what could I come up with to distract him? Isn’t it enough to be always smiling and graciously submissive in all things? . . . I will wait for his mood to pass, keeping always near him, silent and attentive. 

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14 July I was better able to tolerate the tiredness—which I force myself to keep from him—during our excursion today. My feats at archery first provoked smiles and then amazement. But in the evening, crossing the European concession to return home, he became somber again. It was the French holiday. Men from all nations were there: English, Americans, Russians, etc. All excited, they sang their heads off and more than one fell down dead drunk. It was undoubtedly this painful spectacle that upset Pierre. Drink and sing when you can, says the proverb, for nightfall is just around the corner.  18 July Today some friends of Pierre came to see us with their Japanese wives; I do not know any of these women. Introductions made, we went for a walk in the theater district. Oyouki,Â� who, discreetly, has hardly shown her face during the first days of my marriage, was with us; I entrusted her to the only one of these men who has not married. They make a very funny couple; she so little and a little wild, he very tall and very cheerful, with a somewhat mocking manner. Pierre believes Oyouki is the daughter of our landlord and his wife, who live on the ground floor of our house. She has come to live with them; it is as if she were staying with me, and this arrangement spares me useless explanations. I don’t know why he also imagines that my mother is only my stepmother. These details are not important, and I do not dwell on them.  4 August Last night we were tormented by flying insects; the light of the lamps burning near Benten attracts them to our room, and I do all I can to chase them away. I could put up with them, being used to them— they are even sometimes very pretty to watch flying around the mosquito net—but I want to calm Pierre, who is irritated by these little creatures.Â� I notice that many things displease him and I cannot say if anything around us interests him. I begin to feel a deep anxiety about it. . . . Â�

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 10 August I hardly dared admit it; he is bored. This is such unhappiness for me, for I have done nothing but lay myself at his feet and offer him what is best in me, which is as it should be. Alas, we do not speak the same language. I have asked for a dictionary, which I await; perhaps he would love me more if I could speak to him and understand him. I would like to learn French secretly in order to surprise him; the secret of my studies would be hard to keep, but no matter! I am dying to try.  11 August Now it is spiders that disgust him!  12 August He takes notes sometimes in a little notebook, but he never reads, at least I have never seen him with a book in his hands, not even a newspaper. And I who love reading so much can indulge in it only when he is not here. He seems insensitive to the sight of the most charming things. Decidedly, everything bores him. I no longer dare ask him to admire my flower arrangements. He sniffs sometimes, making a terrible face; he dislikes the fine and subtle smell that pervades everything here—it is not in my power to change anything—and he pushes away the little silver pipe I offer him so that he might smoke with me as if it were the most disgusting thing in the world. It’s an innocent pleasure; perhaps I will have to give it up. He ridicules even the dishes we are served—and his eyes take on a deadly expression when Yves gaily rolls playfully around me like a big dog and I feed him with my ivory chopsticks—a children’s game to which he freely gives himself. What is happening in Pierre’s heart? I would like to know. Lying awake, I see a wall rising between us. What will I become if it continues? I dread becoming just a meaningless object for him. Has he ever asked if I love him or even if I could

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love him some day! Some day . . . he will go away, far away, and I will never see him again, all will be over!  18 August He has just one mocking smile for all the little paper things I know how to make so well; birds, blossoms, flowering trees. . . . My music annoys him; only once did he seem to take pleasure in it: Oyouki and I had set seriously to work. I was teaching her some old songs. Our two samisens were sounding. I was singing the ballad of “The Lotus Dying on the Banks of the Dry Lake.” The words of that song broke my heart, and I finished with a sob. Pierre had come in noiselessly; he listened to me, I did not suspect his presence. He asked me to continue. Did he want to see my tears continue to fall? . . . But Kan-Kou-rô having arrived full of mystery to talk to him, they left together, and I heard Pierre bellowing very angrily. Farewell song! I went down to find out from the elders below the cause of this new irritation. They thought they understood from certain words that Kan-Kou-rô let escape that the police required something from us, a simple formality omitted. “Is there reason to be so angry, and everywhere in the world shouldn’t authority be respected? In Japan they are so kind to foreigners. They do everything they want and are not bothered by anyone.” These observations were made discreetly to me by Satô, who is indulgence itself. Moreover, he is an excellent painter; the world of the birds holds no secrets for him, and he excels in representing water birds; cranes under pines—symbols of long life—have above all made his reputation. What distresses Satô so deeply is the disdain that Pierre shows his works, and I even think he is resentful, poor man. Still, a sailor need not be an expert judge of painting!  23 August Five days without seeing him! A kind of numbness has taken hold of me. Every morning, automatically, I replaced the flowers in the house; I put on my prettiest dress and did not allow myself to cry so that

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he would not find me too ugly when he returned. From the balcony I could see the Triumphant on maneuvers in the bay. I consoled myself by supposing that his duties had kept him; there were great storms, and the sea was very rough; communications with the land cannot have been easy. . . . At last, there they are, he and Yves; they are climbing up the hill leading to the house. How I will kiss him!  25 August Yves in the room next to ours, where we set him up for the night, is chasing mosquitoes and grumbling all the while; he kept us from sleeping; it would have been much easier to make him a little place under our mosquito net, we thought. A little brouhaha was the result. Pierre, no doubt inadvertently, had put my makoura between his and the newcomer’s. It goes without saying that I returned things to the proper order with Pierre in the middle. The night passed peacefully, and the two companions set off happily.Â� On the balcony I found his little notebook, which he had forgotten. My dictionary had still not come from Tokio; it must be so hard to learn French! I think I must give it up. For lack of anything else to do, I copied letter by letter on the back of a fan this sentence that I saw him write on the last of these pages, which it was doubtless better for me not to understand: “How eternally beautiful, even in Japan, are mornings in the country and mornings in life!”  27 August Today while walking we paid a visit to my family. He was in a rather good mood and was nice to everyone, especially my mother, who, even in the station to which she has fallen, has remained such a great lady whose playful solemnity seemed to impress him greatly. He was also very gracious with my sisters and brothers. The youngest, after many sweet little tricks, fell asleep on his knees. He admired the garden and praised the exquisite taste that governed the interior arrangements of the house.

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For several minutes all my misgivings were forgotten. But this sunbeam was soon to vanish. Yves and Oyouki having joined us, we set off for a long bout of trinket shopping in town. Pierre, finding everything detestable and nothing to his taste, grew angry, mistreated everyone, and the merchants’ politeness—which he found exaggerated—added to his exasperation. He made me ashamed.  . . . “By what right do you, little Chrysanthème, criticize your master? Has one foreign influence already made you lose the proper notion of your duty? You wanted him, you belong to him until death, and you owe him not only your body, passive and without will, but also your smile and all the grace and charm of a well brought up woman and an artist. And no matter that he makes you suffer, you must show nothing of your suffering.” These severe words from my mother, next to whom, overwhelmed, I had asked to spend the night after this sad excursion, rang in my ears while with heavy heart I climbed the interminable granite stairway leading to the temple festival where I knew that Pierre would end his evening alone with Yves. I brought my little brother with me, counting on him to help me find favor. Yves, who was the first to recognize me in the crowd, was also not without his uses. I humbled myself, and Pierre condescended to allow the little one, who did not want to leave me, to return home up the hill with us.  1 September Days follow nights, nights follow days, without bringing much change to our way of life. While trying to numb myself, I wrack my brains to find things that do not tire him too much. There are very pretty children in our neighborhood. Remembering the success of my littleÂ� brother’s funny faces with him, I encouraged them to come by. It entertainedÂ� him briefly, as did the music I continued to play with Oyouki;Â� but very quickly, as if he reproached himself for giving in to a weakness, he returned to his bored manner, which prevented any show of feeling. It is horrible to lack the words to exchange ideas and

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to be reduced to miming! I could content myself that way because I love him, but he . . .Â�he is much too intellectual to put up with that. For some time now he has been writing a lot.  3 September Has he figured out that I was going crazy to visit his giant ship? He took us there today. They showed us everything. It was very interesting to see once, but I would be quite upset if I had to spend my life in this black and white world among all these canons and heavy ropes. Out of politeness I thought I should insist on saying hello to Yves before leaving the ship. Pierre seemed to find that rather inconvenient. . . .Â�  4 September I cannot hide my misery from him despite all my efforts; though his manners have become more gracious the last several days, I see them arising from a feeling of pity that, far from calming me, makes my existence even sadder. Something tells me that the end is near, and I am seized with dizziness.  6 September Oyouki received as a present a little camera that she has begun to use very well, thanks to the lessons of Professor Takuma. We went this morning to be photographed by him.  11 September From having stayed too long in the sun yesterday, he was very ill; I held him for a long time in my arms. I put my hands on his burning forehead. Today he is nowhere to be seen. Feverish myself, I thought while caressing him so gently that if he died, I would die too. Souls need no words to understand each other; he would know then how much I have loved him.

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 17 September Terrible awakening. Opening my eyes—after a night spent waiting for him—I saw Pierre standing there, one hand lifting the gauze of the mosquito net, in the other holding a little suitcase. I understood; I suppressed a cry; he had come to bid farewell. . . . The day was passed in packing, with Yves’ help. The Triumphant leaves Nagasaki tomorrow evening. I have made him understand that he must come kiss me before the departure, since he must be on board that night. . . . And Yves, whom I will not see again, clasps my hand one last time, a little too hard.  18 September Because he is supposed to return today, I have no right to cry yet . . .Â�and to lull my thoughts to sleep I sing the sad song of the moneylender accompanied by blows struck with a little mallet against the new coins Pierre left me. This song, which is well known in Japan, shows how all crimes come from greediness and that money is the worst thing in the world. For the last time, he comes into my room noiselessly, as you do to surprise a naughty child. He has this very hurtful mania, which was perhaps crueler than all the rest for me. Coming up to me he takes a completely impertinent attitude that I had never before seen in him; he glances from the corner of his eye at the bright coins scattered around me on the tatamis. Does this miserable man think that I care at all for his coins and that I am ringing them to see if they are false? This is the supreme insult! I will go to any end and let nothing show, as I did the night he put my makoura next to his friend’s—to see . . . what? I prostrate myself on the threshold of the door he has crossed for the last time, and I stay in this position until the sound of his footsteps disappears. He does not suspect that he has just left a corpse. Here the notes in the pink notebook end. The epilogue is very Japanese. Forsaken, she wanted to end her existence and hurled herself into the sea.

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Around her neck hung one hundred silver coins tied with a bit of rare silk. She was saved. The silken envelope was retrieved; it contained only little bits of paper stuck to the wet fabric—the silver sank to the bottom of the sea. These little scraps of paper had been forgotten by Monsieur Pierre Loti, left with Madame Chrysanthème, who had piously gathered them up. They were covered with writing partly effaced by the dampness. With great effort one could decipher here a few words, there a few phrases of the following kind: “Everything is uncouth—Everything grimaces bizarrely—Strange symbols—Strange words—It seems unbelievable that these quaint words could mean anything—A strange odor—Beneath strange porches— Comic beliefs—Droll ivories—The most comic of all towns—All kinds of queer little trades—Mr. Sugar and Mrs. Plum, two perfectly unique personages—Indescribable Japanesery—Too much Japanesery—I know not what incomprehensible—I don’t know what indescribable—Improbable flowers—All that is unimaginable—Short of marrying a china ornament, I should find it difficult to choose better—A vague and cold absurdity—In our efforts to arrange matters, we often only succeed in disarranging them—We have absolutely nothing in common with this people—When it rains, it’s always good to go home—It is rather my custom to wind up my exotic existences with a fête—The totality of my being speaks to its imagination.”↜15

Useless to add that this astounding collection of banalities, solecisms, truisms, nonsense, and platitudes can be found considerably augmented in “Madame Chrysanthème” (Calman-Lévy, [sic] publishers) of which one hundred copies were printed “on Japan.”↜16 Brignogan En Plounéour-Trez September 1893. 15. Régamey slightly altered some of Loti’s fragments and created a few Loti-ish phrases himself. For the ease of English readers, this translation, as much as possible, adopts the corresponding phrases in Laura Ensor’s translation of Madame Chrysanthème (the exceptions being when she rearranged Loti’s sentences in a way that separated parts of the quoted fragments). [cr] 16. This refers to the statement by Calmann-Lévy, the publisher, that one hundred copies were printed on a high quality vellum called “Japon” in French. [cr]

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de Mme Chrysanthème par félix régamey

PREFACE

L’Ame japonaise et le Japon de M. Pierre Loti

«Â€Ôtez-moi ces magots!€» disait Louis XIV, en touchant dédaigneusement de sa canne quelques-uns de ces superbes tableaux de l’école hollandaise, qui sont la gloire des musées de nos jours. Et voilà qu’un fameux littérateur français vient nous donner la preuve, dans ses écrits sur le Japon, d’une incompétence égale à celle du grand roi — avec la même superbe. Sans doute cette incompétence n’apparaît pas à tous les yeux; l’éclat du style, le charme des descriptions, voilent, en plus d’un endroit, la rancœur et les préventions de l’auteur, de sorte que l’impression produite sur le lecteur superficiel n’est, en somme, pas trop mauvaise. Il n’en va pas de même pour qui connait bien le pays, et l’indignation de tous ceux, qui ont le culte de la beauté, sous quelque latitude qu’elle se rencontre, peut se comparer à celle qu’éprouverait un bon chrétien à la lecture d’une «Â€interview€» avec Dieu le père — si une telle aventure était possible. Supposons que le reporter le décrive avec complaisance,Â� comme un vieux bonhomme à barbe blanche — tel que les missels gothiques nous le représentent — environné de chérubins joufflus soufflant dans des trompettes, et qu’il s’attarde à certaines particularités, rendues vulgaires à plaisir! Quel scandale ce serait pour les âmes pieuses et quelle souffrance elles éprouveraient à voir traiter irrévérencieusement l’objet de leur dévotion!

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Il y a beaucoup de cela dans l’effet produit sur les fidèles japonisants par la prose de M. Pierre Loti. Est-ce à dire que tout est à admirer dans l’Empire du soleil levant? L’absolue perfection n’est pas de ce monde et, là comme ailleurs, il y a place pour plus d’une critique de détail, surtout si l’on ne veut considérerÂ�que l’époque actuelle. J’ai sous les yeux toute une suite de petits cahiers qui furent envoyés du Japon, avec d’autres objets, à la dernière exposition universelle de Paris par le Monbousho, ministère de l’instruction publique. Ce sont des travaux d’élèves des écoles publiques de là-bas. Écriture, calcul, géométrie, histoire, géographie, toutes les matières enseignées dans nos établissements scolaires d’Europe, sont représentées dans ces cahiers. Je cueille dans l’un d’eux cette narration enfantine d’une petite fille, élève de l’école communale n° 29 de Kioto.Â� P romenades

au

B ois

des

P latanes

«Â€Un dimanche, après avoir bien travaillé à l’école, je suis allée faire une petite promenade dans le bois des platanes de Harasi Yama. Mes parents m’en ayant donné la permission, je suis partie avec mon petit frère et ma bonne. La vallée était fraîche et la vue très agréable. Les feuilles des arbres, rougies par l’automne, étaient richement teintées. Sur la route il y avait beaucoup de promeneurs, et j’ai rencontré plusieurs de mes bonnes camarades de l’école qui allaient, comme moi, prendre l’air dans les bois. Nous nous y sommes bien amusées à poursuivre les jolis papillons et à cueillir des fleurettes. Puis nous sommes rentrées à la maison parce que mes parents nous attendaient pour dîner. Que j’ai eu de plaisir ce jour là! J’ai écrit ces quelques lignes pour conserver le souvenir de cette agréable petite promenade€». Signé: Tané-Osaka, 11 ans ½

Ces cahiers ne nous apprennent pas seulement que le langage des enfants est partout le même, ils nous renseignent aussi sur les méthodes nouvelles adoptées pour l’enseignement du dessin; en les parcourant, nous voyons les travaux des élèves de différentes classes des écoles primaires de garçons et de filles. Que les classes soient supérieures ou moyennes, c’est maintenant partout le même genre d’objets qui a servi de modèles à ces malheureux enfants: marmite, casquette, petit banc, etc., le même «Â€objet usuel€»

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sans expression et sans vie dont on a tant abusé chez nous, mais dont, heureusement, on commence à se lasser un peu. Le pis est que pour ces études, l’usage du pinceau, cet outil admirable, si souple et si ferme à la fois, l’outil national, n’a pas été conservé. C’est notre crayon mine de plomb, sec, et notre crayon noir, boueux, aggravé d’estompe, dont, gauchemen, se sont servis ces petits Japonais dévoyés. On peut voir dans ce détail si important, sous son apparenceÂ�insignifiante, une des nombreuses manifestations de ce phénomène désolant observé par quelques initiés, qui, de loin, suivent, avec une anxieuse sympathie, les progrès de la civilisation occidentale au Japon.1 Comment ne pas souffrir au spectacle offert par un peuple qui semble avoir perdu la conscience de sa valeur en art, qui, foulant aux pieds le génie de sa race, s’efface et s’humilie devant le fracas de nos produits . . . à l’huile! et s’essouffle à vouloir nous suivre sur notre terrain, où il se montre d’une infériorité qui n’a d’égale que la nôtre, quand nous voulons nous aventurer sur le sien. Aussi bien chez nous que chez eux, il y a une notion qui échappe à plus d’un. C’est ainsi que, croyant me faire bien plaisir, un ami m’offrait, il y a peu de temps, de petits paysages d’un artiste de Tokio: aquarelles baveuses, cotonneuses, en manière de chromo, sur papier torchon, parfait spécimen de l’art phthisique qu’on trouve dans nos cours de jeunes demoiselles, et n’ayant rien gardé de l’accent net et subtil de l’ancienne image japonaise. Et c’est ainsi encore qu’on a pu voir le critique théâtral d’un grand journal parisien partir en guerre contre les licences qu’un auteur s’était permises, en adaptant l’œuvre d’un poète de la Grèce antique, alors qu’il restait parfaitement calme en présence des licences, tout aussi haïssables, d’un autre auteur qui avait transporté sur la scène un Japon absurde. Si le Japon semble n’avoir pas droit aux mêmes égards que la Grèce, c’est uniquement parce qu’on ignore l’un tandis que l’autre est ressassé. Cependant de nombreux et remarquables travaux ont été publiés 1. But it seems likely instead of Japan converting us, we shall pervert Japan. Our contact has already tainted the dress, the houses, the pictures, the life generally, of the upper classes. It is to the common people that one must now go for the old tradition of sober beauty and proportion. You want flowers arranged? Ask your house-coolie. There is something wrong in the way the garden is laid out? It looks too formal, and yet your proposed alteration would turn it into a formless maze? Call in the cook or the washerman as counsellors. b. h. chamberlain (Things Japanese↜)

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sur cet empire, en Angleterre principalement. En France, nous avons ceux de M. Pierre Loti, l’ingrat, le déplorable ami de madame Chrysanthème. Son parti pris incompréhensible de dénigrement est bien fait pour confondre l’esprit de quiconque a pratiqué le Japon autrement que ce marin. Il n’a fait que l’entrevoir du pont de son navire, et il le définit ainsi: «Â€cette étonnante patrie de toutes les saugrenuités!!!€» Saugrenue! . . . Cette nature superbe où le pin colossal, à la noble allure, se marie au bambou capricieux et léger, où, d’un bout de l’année à l’autre, les fleurs étaient leur enchantement: c’est la neige rose des cerisiers dévalant des collines, ce sont les camélias de pourpre, les lis d’or, les graciles graminées, dont se parent à foison sentiers et buissons . . . c’est l’inépuisable variété de chrysanthèmes, ravissant notre Occident qui, jusqu’à ces dernières années, ne connaissait de cette plante qu’une espèce rabougrie et terne.2 Saugrenue! . . . Cette architecture élégante et grandiose, le Siro féodal, château-fort, aux murailles trapues, qui plonge dans un fossé aux eaux profondes et découpe sur le ciel sa silhouette tragique, et ces temples Bouddhistes au décor éblouissant, somptueuses demeures de la plus tolérante des religions3, où des prêtres, qui étaient de grands 2. The first impression made on any fairly observant person landing in Japan is the extraordinary variety of the vegetation. No wonder that the number of known species of trees and plants (exclusive of mosses and other low organism) rises to the enormous figure of two thousand seven hundred and forty three, distributed over an unusually large number of genera, while it is almost certain that further investigations will raise the figure considerably, the northern portion of the country having been as yet imperfectly explored. b. h. chamberlain (Things Japanese) 3. . . . I may here mention as evidence of the liberality of the Buddhists, that when Lady Parkes applied to the high priest of Shiba, for permission to have the church of England service performed in one of the chapels connected with this great shrine, her request was at once granted. Hence Christian worship is offerd every Sunday in this greatest of Buddhist temple. . . . The impression which I now receive upon first beholding the magnificent temples (Shiba) and shrines standing before me as we step from our carriage is most delightful. Buildings so rich in colour, so beautiful in detail, so striking in symbolism, I have never before seen, or even dreamt of. Had a Gibbons been employed on the wood-carving, had the colourist of the Alhambra done his utmost to add to forms which in themselves are almost perfect, a new charm trough the addition of pigment, and were the whole of such detail subordinated to fitting places in as vast architectural edifices by the architects of the Parthenon, no more worthy effect could be produced than that of the buildings on which my eyes now rest. On this memorable day, I learnt many facts of deep interest, and I have certainly beheld, enshrined in cryptomerias and conebearing trees of vast proportion, an amount of architectural beauty, such as I have never before seen. christopher dresser (Japan; Its architecture, art and art manufacture)

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artistes, ont, intérieurement, extérieurement, et de la base au faîte, accumulé l’or et la soie, le bronze, la laque rouge et noire, les émaux et les peintures, fouillé le bois, sculpté d’inextricables chapiteaux surmontant de lourds piliers, le tout bien digne d’être mis en parallèle avec nos plus belles cathédrales! Saugrenus! . . . Ces fondeurs, ces armuriers, ces orfèvres, ces ciseleurs, ces sculpteurs et ces peintres à qui l’on doit des œuvres dont les moindres sont arrivées jusqu’à nous, et dont il faut voir les plus beaux spécimens sur place dans leur cadre, tel le Daïboutz de Kamakura, colosse de métal doré d’un style si pur, et tous ces objets d’usage courant en ivoire, en faïence, en bronze, etc. Saugrenus! . . . Ces héros et ces héroïnes qui égalent en courage et en vertu tout ce que notre histoire et nos mythologies ont à nous offrir de plus grand et de plus beau! Il faut plaindre l’esprit superficiel, qui n’a pas su voir tout cela, à l’égal de ces faux artistes qui n’ont su retenir que le côté platement caricatural d’une civilisation encore si fertile en beautés sobres et délicates4, et se sont plu à représenter les Japonais aux prises avec les engins étrangers à leurs mœurs et à leurs traditions, spectacle ridicule s’il en fut! C’est qu’ils ont fait du chemin, en quarante ans, depuis le jour où M. T. Harris, le représentant des Etats-Unis, débarqua à Simoda pour mettre à exécution la convention imposée par le commodore Parry. En ce temps-là, les Japonais manquant d’informations précises, échangèrent leur or pour de l’argent — à poids égal€!Â� Aujourd’hui il en est de même dans le domaine intellectuel et moral. Jusqu’où iront-ils dans cette voie? . . . C’est ce que l’avenir nous apprendra. Peuple amoureux de la nature, artiste jusqu’aux moëlles, il est permis d’espérer qu’il n’est pas perdu encore pour l’idéal et qu’il aura lui aussi, sa Renaissance, car il ne reste plus rien de sa féodalité, ni de ce que, par analogie, on pourrait appeler son art gothique. C’est sur le nôtre qu’ont été écrites ces lignes dans la Revue Bleue: «Â€ Au moyen-âge, nulle trace d’artiste. Le peintre, le sculpteurÂ� 4. Japanese taste in painting, in furniture, in floral decoration, in all matters depending on line and form, may by summed up in one word: sobriety. The bluster which mistakes bigness for greatness, the vulgarity which smothers beauty under ostentation and extravagance, have no place in the Japanese way of thinking. The alcove of a Tokio or Kioto drawing room holds one picture and one flower vase, which are changed from time to time. To be sure, the picture and vase are alike exquisite. . . . When will Europe learn afresh from Japan that lesson of proportion, of fitness, of sobriety, which Greece once knew so well? b. h. chamberlain (Things Japanese)

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étaient ce qu’ils auraient dû rester toujours: des ouvriers s’acquittant pour le mieux des travaux qu’on leur commandait. Le souci de l’originalité, de la personnalité, qui est en train de perdre l’art de notre temps, ce vain souci ne les tourmentait pas. Ils ne cherchaient pas à faire autrement, c’est presque à leur insu, par la seule force inconsciente de leur tempérament naturel€». Ceci, dit pour ce que l’auteur appelle «Â€l’âme gothique€», s’applique parfaitement bien à l’âme japonaise. Aujourd’hui encore, pour qui sait voir, elle trouve à se manifester dans les moindres produits sortant des mains de l’artisan japonais5, si imparfaits qu’ils soient, vite faits, à€la grosse, avec des matériaux de plus en plus médiocres et visant le marché européen. Le problème de faire quelque chose avec rien, résolu par l’article dit de Paris, semble également avoir trouvé sa solution là-bas. Cela nous arrive par cargaisons qui rappellent les pacotilles que nous destinons aux peuplades du continent noir, et, dans ces deux cas, le même mépris pour le destinataire préside à l’envoi. Malgré tout, l’âme japonaise n’est pas morte — hypnotisée par la puissance occidentale, elle n’est encore qu’en léthargie — elle se ressaisira un jour.  Le Japon, qui compte en France des admirateurs passionnés, n’avait point encore rencontré, parmi ses très rares détracteurs, un personnage de la taille de M. Pierre Loti.Â� Officier de marine littérateur — et quel! — peintre miniaturiste, d’une grâce féminine, décorateur d’éventails pour le grand monde, il est écouté et on le croit sur parole, quelles que soient les variations qu’il lui plaise de broder sur des sujets entrevus. Cependant l’observation d’escale a ses périls et prête à bien des défaillances. La déception sentimentale qui nous est confessée dans «Â€Madame Chrysanthème€ » n’est peut-être pas étrangère non plus aux allures méprisantes qu’affiche libéralement, pour ce pays si beau, et pour ses habitants, l’historiographe patenté des faciles beautés exotiques. 5. Mr. Percival Lowel truly observe that, To stroll down the «Â€Broadway » of Tokio of an evening is a liberal education in every day art, for—as he adds, —Watever these people fashion, from the toy of an hour to the triumphs of all time, is touched by a taste unknown elsewhere. b. h. chamberlainÂ�(Things Japanese)

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Oh! il les traite durement ces pauvres Japonais! Ils ont pourtant un droit incontestable à l’estime des peuples.6Â� Ils ne possèdent pas, à vrai dire, l’habileté cauteleuse des Chinois; ils n’ont jamais songé à gratifier l’Europe d’un général lettré, chargé d’affaires, et aussi de chanter sans cesse leurs louanges à nos dépens. Ils sont plus modestes. Par courtoisie et en reconnaissances des services qu’ils ont rendus à notre art, n’appartient-il pas, dès lors, à ceux d’entre nous qui vraiment les connaissent, de prendre leur défense et de rétablir les faits? De ce Japon, ceux qui l’ont bien vu et qui ont su l’apprécier, ont rapporté de persistants souvenirs qui dominent et remplissent une existence entière. L’impression psychique se mêle intimement ici à la sensation physique, et le parfum poivre des îles de l’Extrême-Orient suit, au travers des mers, avec l’évocation des êtres et des choses, ceux qui s’en sont allés. Et ils souffrent, à voir tacher d’une encre maussade les robes dorées ou fleuries des dieux et des femmes de là-bas. Il est certainement bien à plaindre l’ami ennuyé de madame Chrysanthème d’être atteint de cette hyperexcitabilité douloureuse qui lui fait promener un spleen britannique à travers le plus riant pays du monde; c’est à cette infirmité qu’il faut attribuer «Â€l’exaspération que lui cause la laideur de ce peuple€» et qui lui inspire des appréciations dans le goût de celle-ci: «Â€des gongs, des claquebois, des guitares, des flûtes; tout cela grince, gémit, détonne avec une étrangeté inouie et une tristesse à faire frémir€», et encore: «Â€Passons vite, tout cela sent la race jaune, la moisissure et la mort€». Où le mélancolique ami de Mme. Chrysanthème a-t-il jamais vu les boutiques encadrées de drap noir qu’il compare avec insistance à des tentures de pompes funèbres? Ces étoffes, en réalité, sont des bannes où se lisent, en caractères clairs, les enseignes des différentes industries. Jamais elles ne sont noires, jamais elles ne sont en drap. Les Japonais, pour cet usage, emploient des toiles teintes, généralement,Â� 6. In the days before japanese [sic] ideas become know to Europe people there used to consider it essential to have the patterns on plate, cushions and what not, arranged with geometrical accuracy. It on the right hand, there was a cupid looking to the left, then on the left hand there must be a cupid of exactly the same size looking to the right, ond the chief feature of the design was invariably in the exact centre. The Japanese artisan-artist have shown us that the mechanical symmetry does not make for beauty. They have thaught us the charme of irregularity, and if the world owe them but this one lesson, Japan may yet proud of what she has accomplished. b. h. chamberlain (Things Japanese)

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en beau bleu indigo; quelques-unes sont brunes; les marchands de tabac, seuls, en étalent de rouges. Nous ne croyons pas que tout cela offre un aspect bien funèbre et donne, d’après l’expression de l’auteur, l’idée d’un «Â€deuil général€». Ailleurs, c’est le tramway, dans lequel, il prend bien soin de nous le dire, «Â€il monte pour la première fois de sa vie€», qui l’indispose, et ses voisins lui inspirent cette phrase écœurée: «Â€Combien je regrette, mon Dieu, de m’être fourvoyé dans cette voiture du peuple€». Voyez-le, tamponnant son mouchoir sous son nez d’aristocrate pour combattre la déplaisante senteur «Â€d’huile de camélia rancie, de bête fauve, de race jaune!€» L’imagination en ceci joue un grand rôle, car la race japonaise, grâce à son hygiène, à son exquise propreté, à ses bains chauds quotidiens et à son alimentation végétale, se distingue entre tous les peuples par son inodorance.7Â� Mais le lamentable ami de Mme. Chrysanthème n’est-ilÂ�Â�Â�Â� pas un styliste hors pair? Cependant lequel d’entre nous est bien sûr de pénétrer pleinement sa pensée intime, dans cette phrase extraite d’une description de Tokio: «Â€La ville occupe une sorte de vaste plaine ondulée; ses quelques collines, trop petites pour y faire un bon effet quelconque, sont juste suffisantes pour y mettre du désordre€». Et nous aussi, en fermant les yeux, nous retrouvons ce décor: assis sous le portique écarlate du iaski de la mission militaire française, nous voyons se dérouler à nos pieds un panorama superbe. C’est le château impérial, le Siro; ses hautes murailles plongent dans un fossé profond plein de lotus roses, et son immense parc aux frondaisons antiques, va rejoindre, à l’horizon, la mer d’un bleu éteint, perdue dans la brume argentée. Puis voici des quartiers entiers, le réseau compliqué des canaux aux ponts recourbés et, partout va, vient, se presse, s’amasse une foule alerte et bigarrée; enfin, plus loin encore, c’est, dans un coin verdoyant de banlieue, une maisonnette chère entre toutes, car c’est là que vivait Kiosaï, le grand artiste qui fut notre ami . . . L’incompréhension, les erreurs de détail, les illusions d’optique qui font voir noir ce qui est bleu, tout cela ne serait rien et l’on pourrait 7. Some of the inhabitants of a certain village famed for its hot springs excused themselves to the present writer for their dirtiness during the busy summer months: «Â€For€», said they, «Â€we have only time to bathe twice a day€». «Â€How often, then, do you bathe in winter? »Â� «Â€Oh! About four or five time daily. The children get into bath whenever they feel cold€». b. h.Â�chamberlain (Things Japanese)

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encore s’entendre; on passerait même condamnation sur une exclamation de cette force: «Â€ Comme je comprends de plus en plus cette horreur du Japonais chez les Européens qui les ont longtemps pratiqués en plein Japon!€ » qui n’est autre chose qu’une contre-vérité manifeste.8 Où cela devient plus grave, c’est lorsque, s’abandonnant sans réserve au parti-pris de dénigrement qui l’anime, l’ami mal avisé de Mme Chrysanthème englobe une nation entière dans la plus injurieuse des accusations. Oser dire en parlant d’un «Â€ établissement honnête et familial, tenu par un vieux monsieur Nippon, sa dame d’un certain âge et les trois amiables mousmés, ses demoiselles, qu’ici comme partout les personnes sont à vendre aussi bien que les choses€» est plus qu’une calomnie. Pour mériter d’être traités aussi grossièrement, il faudrait qu’ils eussent bien changé depuis le temps où St-François Xavier disait d’eux: «Â€Autant que je puis en juger, les Japonais surpassent en vertu et en probité toutes les nations découvertes jusqu’ici; ils sont d’un caractère doux, opposé à la chicane, fort avides d’honneurs qu’ils préfèrent à tout le reste; la pauvreté est fréquente chez eux, sans être en aucune façon déshonorante, bien qu’ils la supportent avec peine€». Revenons à Madame Chrysanthème. Qui n’a souri à cette phrase de la dédicace: «Â€Bien que le rôle le plus long soit à Madame Chrysanthème, il est bien certain que les trois principaux personnages sont Moi, le Japon et l’Effet que ce pays m’a produit€». Cette déclaration n’a pas seulement le don d’égayer quiconque est le moins de monde au courant de la questionÂ� — artiste, marchand, touriste vulgaire ou simple matelot, j’en appelle à «Â€mon frère Yves€» lui-même — il en est plus d’un parmi ceux-là qui aurait souhaité voir le mot de Montaigne: «Â€Ceci est un livre de bonne foi€» inscrit, le sens 8. Le Japonais de l’intérieur montre beaucoup d’égards pour le voyageur européen: c’est encore pour lui un objet d’intérêt qui éveille dans son esprit simple une sympathie faite de curiosité et de bonhomie. On retrouveÂ� là un peu de ces mœurs patriarcales, de cette hospitalité traditionnelleÂ�des peuples antiques. Depuis la petite servante d’auberge avenante et souriante toujours, dans son charme gracile de joli bibelot d’étagère, jusqu’au maître de l’hôtellerie qui se perd en profondes révérences, sans cesse répétées jusqu’à l’obsession, tous vous sont accueillants, et vous vous sentez enveloppé d’une atmosphère de chaude bienveillance. Le paysan, le guide, l’aubergiste vous entourent d’une attention respectueuse. dr. michaut (Le Japon inconnu, «Â€Figaro du 7 Oct. 93€»)

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retourné, en tête de l’œuvre; cela n’aurait pas été de trop pour le lecteur ignorant du Japon, et puis c’eût été plus franc. Car enfin, que voyons-nous encore dans cet ouvrage? Des noms propres détournés intentionnellement de leur véritable sens par la traduction. Les noms de personnes que les Japonais empruntent parfois aux différents règnes de la nature, ne sont pas composés seulement des mots qui servent à désigner les objets; ces mots ne forment pas à eux seuls des appellations. Ils sont généralement additionnés d’une particule qui, en quelque sorte, les anoblit, ou d’un autre nom qui les complète. Ainsi pour les jeunes filles portant le nom de la neige, la lune, on ne dit pas simplement Yuki ou Isuki, mais O-Yuki, O-Isuki; il en sera de même pour mesdemoiselles Jasmin, Campanule, Jonquille, qui seront O-Sen, O-Kio, O-Yoshi, et madame Prune ne sera pas Me mais On-Mè. Voici encore la traduction des noms masculins: M. Sucre, Sâto; Cerisier, Sakura-Marou; Pigeon, Hato-horo; Liseron, Sen-Ka; Or, Kin-no-ské; Bambou, Taki-sabouro; s’il s’agissait d’une fille on dirait O-Také. Quant à Kangourou, c’est une bien autre affaire, le correspondant japonais n’existe pas, l’animal étant inconnu au Nippon. M. Loti a sans doute été amusé par une consonance dont il a tiré parti pour ridiculiser son personnage. Il y a, en effet, un nom propre, sans signification: Kan-Kou-rô, dont il a pu faire Kangourou, en nous laissant croire à une honnête traduction, comme pour les noms de certains autres de ses personnages. Des gens s’évanouissent au parfum des fleurs; d’autres ont en horreur la musique, dédaignent les beaux vers et méprisent la peinture; au moins ceux-là, généralement, ont conscience de leur infériorité, et ne se livrent pas à la pure diffamation pour démontrer que seuls ils ont raison contre tout le monde. Paul Bourget a écrit ces lignes sur Corfou: «Â€. . . Ile verdoyante et que je ne reverrai peut-être jamais, quand tu ne m’aurais donné que cette volupté de quelques matinées passées de la sorte sur ton rivage, ton nom me resterait sacré pour toujours, et quand je me souviens de toi une phrase du noble et triste Flaubert me chante dans la mémoire: Même il y a des endroits de la terre si beaux qu’on envie de la serrer contre son cœur!€» Ces lignes, je voudrais les avoir écrites — pour parler comme M. Loti — elles s’appliquent si bien à «Â€Moi, au Japon et à l’Effet qu’il m’a produit!€»

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DÉDICACE

A ma bien chère Marraine, la Comtesse MATSOUKATA ambassadrice à Paris Vous étiez indulgente et bonne pour votre petite Chrysanthème, et si douce, au temps mille fois béni où, toute jeune, elle était votre humble servante. Par votre exemple, autant que par vos leçons, vous m’avez appris la docilité, premier devoir de la femme, le plus apprécié de ses charmes. Hélas, je ne suis plus une enfant, j’ai vingt ans, et mon expérience de la vie est déjà très rude. Avec la sincérité que vous me connaissez, j’ai retracé pour vous seule, au jour le jour, les événements qui ont rempli une phase poignante de mon existence et je vous dédie sous crainte ce petit cahier que j’ai arrosé souvent de mes larmes . . . Je n’ai pas un instant essayé de lutter contre le destin, contre l’entraînement de mon cœur. J’ai voulu bien faire; si je n’ai pas réussi, vous au moins ne me tiendrez pas rigueur, j’en suis certaine. J’ai sous mon oreiller, dans le tiroir du makoura, une photographie c’est un instantané pris à la dérobée par cette petite folle de Oyouki. Un homme, devant en miroir, vu de dos, absorbé dans sa propre contemplation. Il ne me reste pas autre chose de celui qui, pendant tout un été, a tenu mon cœur dans ses dures mains — ô combien dures! A la fin, mes amies l’avaient surnommé: Rhinocéros parfumé. C’était

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trop. Mais comment cet étranger a-t-il pu prendre un tel empire sur mon âme, qu’il semble n’avoir jamais eu la curiosité de pénétrer et qu’il n’a jamais su comprendre? C’est ce que je ne saurais dire. D’ailleurs je ne cherche plus à comprendre, moi non plus. Les Chinois ont peut-être raison de traiter ces hommes, venus de l’Occident, de barbares et de diables rouges — lui pourtant était brun — et nous avons peut-être tort de les accueillir et de vouloir les imiter?Â� N’était-ce pas un peu ce que vous me disiez jadis? Vous devez être plus à même d’en juger aujourd’hui que vous les voyez de plus près. Mais que m’importe maintenant? Il a quelque chose de brisé en moi; j’avais un trop beau rêve, contre toute raison; il eût fallu un miracle pour qu’il se réalisât, et j’en étais bien indigne. J’ai lu dans le «Â€Tokio-Chimboum€» que la mission du comte Matsoukata en Europe allait sans doute prendre fin bientôt. Quel bonheur ce serait pour moi de vous revoir! Cet espoir, seul, peut me consoler dans ma détresse.Â� Avec grand respect, ma chère Marraine, je suis votre reconnaissante et dévouée servante jusqu’à la mort. Chrysanthème

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E

3 Juillet 1885 n rentrant à la maison je trouve Oyouki,Â�ma petiteÂ� voisine, tremblante et toute défaite, et cela augmenteÂ�l’inquiétude que j’éprouvais de ne l’avoir pas vue à la fête du Jardin des Fleurs où nous devionsÂ�nous rencontrer. Il s’est passé ceci: Un grand navire européen est arrivé hier; il en est sorti des hommesÂ�bleus, le cou nu; enÂ� bandeÂ� ils se sont répandus par la ville, pénétrantÂ� dans les maisons,Â� avec de gros éclats de voix, à la manière de leur pays sans doute. Trois d’entre eux ayant loué des chevaux, galopaient d’une façon désordonnée sur la route que suivait Oyouki pour venir à notre rendez-vous. Très effrayée à la vue de ces hommes, elle s’était jetée de côté précipitamment afin de les éviter et embarrassée dans sa robe, elle avait roulé au fond du fossé; les étranges cavaliers étaient bien loin quand Oyouki décoiffée, les mains ensanglantées, se relevait et sans plus de mal revenait sur ses pas. Il n’y parait plus maintenant, et nous voilà bien tranquilles accroupies sur le balcon d’où l’on a une vue admirable de la mer, en partie masquée par les vieux arbres aux branches tordues. Nous causons. Pour consoler Oyouki de sa mésaventure, je lui raconteÂ�la fête dont elle a été privée, et prenant mon samisen, j’essaye



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de me souvenir des chansons qu’elle n’a pas entendues. La fameuse artiste, que nos amis avaient amenée au Jardin des Fleurs, en savait de fort jolies. D’ordinaire il me suffit d’entendre un air une fois pour le retenir; aujourd’hui la mémoire me manque. Mon âme errante est ailleurs . . . Là-bas, dans la baie, au-dessus d’une masse noire immobile, flotte un pavillon tricolore . . . Pour ne pas rappeler à Oyouki son accident de la journée, et cédant à je ne sais quel sentiment indéfinissable, je ne lui dis rien du bel officier de marine à peine entrevu. On l’avait installé dans la pièce voisine de celle où nous faisions de la musique. Vêtu de toile blanche aussi, qui faisait valoir son teint mat et ses cheveux bruns, il paraissait un peu agité — tous ces étrangers sont ainsi — il avait pourtant, celui-là, des yeux songeurs qui restent plantés dans les miens. Oyouki ne leur en veut pas à ces hommes bleus dont le bruit lui a tant fait peur: partout les marins sont un peu rudes, ceux-ci ne savent rien de nos usages — et nous que savons-nous? — «Â€Le crapaud qui rêve au fond d’un puits ignore ce qu’est l’Univers.€» En Europe comme au Japon, il y a des poètes, des artistes et des savants qui sont intelligents et tendres . . . comme les nôtres; ceux-là je voudrais les connaître, et même tous les marins ne doivent pas se ressembler. Le premier que j’ai vu était blond et très laid, je crois, mais si débonnaire; respectueux de nos coutumes, il ne manquait jamais d’ôter ses chaussures avant d’entrer chez nous. Il ne resta pas bien longtemps à Nagasaki, il écrivait et dessinait beaucoup; je me souviens qu’il me fit manger des confitures apportées de son pays; j’étais bien jeune alors, et mon père me dit: «Â€C’est un Anglais.€» Celui auquel je pense est Français.  5 Juillet O la folle! J’en avais fait du chemin depuis l’instant où mon regard s’était rencontré avec celui de M. Loti! Car je sais son nom maintenant. Ah! oui, bien folle: je ne voyais plus que lui et j’en rêvais la nuit . . . C’était très vague; parfois je me sentais secouée de la tête aux pieds . . . C’était douloureux et fort doux . . . J’apprends qu’il va épouser cette petite sotte de O-Sen; c’est KanKou-rô — un vilain homme — qui s’occupe de ce mariage, et c’est

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demainÂ� qu’a lieu la présentation. Plusieurs personnes y assisteront et je m’arrangerai pour être là. Pourquoi? Je n’ai plus à me cacher, maintenant que tout est convenu avec une autre. Comment ai-je pu imaginer que ce passant pourrait avoir quelque chose de commun avec moi! Il m’effrayait et m’attirait tout ensemble; c’était comme une fascination. Quand je l’ai aperçu pour la seconde fois, il suivait le petit chemin creux qui longe la maison; j’ai eu juste le temps de me blottir derrière un arbre pour qu’il ne me vît pas. Il parlait avec animation, la main posée sur l’épaule d’un homme plus grand que lui; cet homme semblait l’écouter avec déférence, bien qu’il hochât la tête parfois, de l’air de quelqu’un qui ne veut pas se laisser convaincre. Enfin ils quittèrent le chemin et disparurent dans le bois de bambous . . .  9 Juillet Je suis sa femme! . . . En vain je me répète ces mots, je ne puis y croire . . . Cela est, pourtant. Je n’en veux plus à Kan-Kou-rô, qui a fait cela, et je regrette d’avoir été méchante pour cette petite O-Sen, à qui j’ai été préférée. Elle était pourtant d’une élégance parfaite dans sa robe grise brodée de roses pâles et de papillons. Sa femme! Aujourd’hui j’entrerai avec lui dans la maison qu’il a choisie, là-haut, sur la colline, auprès du cimetière. Une partie de mon petit bagage y est déjà; j’ai accompli mes dévotions à Benten et nous sommes en règle avec ces messieurs de la police. Il fait un beau temps clair ce matin. C’est toujours le printemps, puisque l’ototoguis, l’oiseau d’avril, n’est pas encore parti, et je suis heureuse de vivre; mais il ne faut pas trop le laisser paraître. Trois jours se sont écoulés depuis cette soirée mémorable; commencée au coucher du soleil, elle ne s’est terminée qu’à dix heures du soir; c’est qu’il a fallu du temps à Kan-Kou-rô, pour rompre avec Mademoiselle O-Sen, plus que pour nous unir, Pierre et moi. Cachée derrière les autres, j’avais ma robe bleue, couleur de nuit, parsemée de fleurs de roseaux; deux épingles très simples dans les cheveux. J’étais venue pour voir et il me serait bien difficile de dire ce qui s’est passé, jusqu’au moment où, défaillante, et me disposant à sortir, je sentis quelqu’un me saisir le poignet un peu vivement. Je me trouvai amenée devant Lui, toute droite, et le sang, qui s’était arrêté dans mes veines, affluant au cœur, je crus que j’allais tomber; mais

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Il me prit la main, l’homme qui était à côté de lui — je le reconnus pour être celui du chemin creux — en fit autant, et je compris qu’il m’adressait un compliment en me montrant son ami. On me fit une question, je dus répondre oui . . . Sans la demi violence que m’a faite Kan-Kou-rô, en m’amenant devant Lui, rien de tout cela n’aurait eu lieu sans doute. Ce Kan-Kou-rô, si laid, est-ce que je vais le trouver beau à présent! Il fallait l’assentiment de ma mère: il se chargea de l’obtenir; mais c’était bien pour la forme, car la chère maman ne voit que par mes yeux et fait tout ce que je veux. D’ailleurs je vais avoir dix-neuf ans. Comme je suis vieille! Avec quel bonheur j’ai consenti! N’est-ce pas le hasard qui a tout fait, et comme je le bénis ce hasard! Chacun s’est dit bonsoir et l’on s’est séparé.  10 Juillet Nuit splendide; les étoiles brillent d’un éclat incomparable; jamais les cigales n’ont chanté si allègrement . . . Je suis brisée.  11 Juillet Maintenant je vis dans mon rêve . . . De chez nous la vue est encore plus belle que de mon chez moi d’hier. La maison est enfouie dans la verdure; le jardin est plein de fleurs, d’arbustes savamment disposés sur de menus mamelons, et un ruisselet d’eau limpide se contourne et se répand en minces cascades parmi les rochers moussus montagnes en miniatures. Ma chambre est telle que je la voulais: les karakamis sont éblouissants de blancheur, comme les nattes du plancher, les tatamis; les poutrelles du plafond sont en bois rose, en hinaki, d’essence précieuse, merveilleusement veiné; mon samisen est accroché au-dessus de la petite bibliothèque où sont mes livres: des romans historiques et différents manuels à l’usage des mousmés, surtout ceux qui traitent de l’art de marier les fleurs entre elles et de les disposer dans des vases. Des vases avec des fleurs, j’en ai mis partout; je suis assez satisfaite de mon ouvrage. Et puis j’ai placé sur son socle, dans le tokonoma, entre deux lanternes de bronze, Benten, une statuette en bois doré, chère relique qui me vient de mes grands parents. C’est la bonne déesse de

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la mer, protectrice des amoureux; elle est bien à sa place ici et m’est plus précieuse encore aujourd’hui. Je la prierai sans cesse pour qu’elle me protège et m’inspire. Dans la pièce à côté, des coffres laqués où sont mes robes; j’en ai douze, autant qu’il y a d’heures dans le jour; ce n’est pas beaucoup pour la joie des yeux de celui qu’on aime . . . Nous étions plus riches autrefois. Après la révolution, mon père qui était un haut Samouraï, dut quitter le service de son seigneur le prince de Satzouma; une mélancolie mystérieuse s’empara de son esprit; il ne s’occupa plus du tout de sa maison, qui périclita, et bientôt il mourut, rongé par le chagrin de voir des étrangers s’emparer de tout le pays. Quelle opinion aurait-il de moi en cet instant? Je tremble un peu en me le demandant . . . Mais non, les femmes n’ont pas à compter avec la politique; le cœur doit être tout pour elles. Sous des dehors durs et hautains, mon père cachait une immense bonté. Il comprendrait; il me pardonnerait. Ma mère était guécha à Kioto quand il s’éprit d’elle. Rien ne put vaincre leur amour; on en fit des chansons et des pièces de théâtre, qui exposaient, en les amplifiant, tous les obstacles que les amants eurent à surmonter avant de s’épouser. Ayant souffert, il aurait eu pitié de ma souffrance. Chassons donc ces vilaines idées. Pierre est mon maître, je n’ai plus qu’à lui plaire; je l’aime et il peut faire de moi ce qu’il veut.  12 Juillet Je me sens en peu lasse d’avoir couru la ville hier toute la journée avec mon Pierre et Yves son matelot, en jinrikisha. Nous sommes rentrés fort tard, et la nuit, nous avons été tenus éveillés par les rats et les souris qui ont mené grand bruit sur le toit et dans toute la maison. Il en a paru très ennuyé et, s’étant éloigné de moi, il alla s’accouder sur le balcon. Absorbé dans sa méditation, il semblait que je n’existais plus pour Lui. Maudites souris! A la fin n’y tenant plus, je me glissais auprès de lui, et entourant son sou de mes bras tremblants, je le ramenais auprès de moi sous la moustiquaire.  13 Juillet Yves est devenu mon grand ami; il ne manque pas d’adresse, avec ses manières lourdes; sa bruyante gaîté, qui n’exclut pas une certaine

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finesse, anime un peu la maison, si calme quand mon Pierre est seul avec moi. La tristesse qui l’a saisi€la nuit dernière ne l’a pas quitté; que pourrais-je inventer pour le distraire? Ne suffit-il pas d’être toujours souriante et gracieusement soumise en toutes choses? . . . J’attendrai que son accès soit passé, en me tenant auprès de lui, muette et attentive.  14 Juillet J’ai mieux supporté la fatigue — que je m’efforce de lui dissimuler — de notre promenade d’aujourd’hui. Mes prouesses au tir à l’arc l’ont fait sourire d’abord et ensuite l’ont émerveillé. Mais, le soir, en traversant la concession européenne, pour rentrer chez nous, il est redevenu sombre. C’était la fête des Français. Il y avait là des hommes de toutes les nations: Anglais, Américains, Russes, etc. Ils chantaient à tue-tête, très excités et plus d’un roulait ivre-mort. C’est sans doute ce spectacle pénible qui avait fâché Pierre. Buvez et chantez quand vous pouvez, dit le proverbe, car à deux pas de vous c’est la nuit noire.  18 Juillet Aujourd’hui sont venus nous voir les amis de Pierre avec leurs femmes japonaises; je ne connais aucune de ces dames. Les présentations faites, nous avons été nous promener dans le quartier des théâtres. Oyouki qui s’est peu montrée, par discrétion, pendant les premiers jours de mon mariage, était avec nous; je l’ai confiée au seul de ces messieurs qui soi resté célibataire. Ils forment en couple excessivement comique; elle toute petite et un peu sauvage, lui très grand et très gai, avec un peu l’air de se moquer des gens. Oyouki passe aux yeux de Pierre pour la fille de nos propriétaires, qui occupent le rez-de-chaussée de la maison. Elle est venue habiter avec eux, c’est comme si elle était en visite chez moi, et cet arrangement m’évite des explications inutiles. Je ne sais pas pourquoi aussi il s’est imaginé que ma mère n’est que ma belle-mère . . . Ces détails sont sans importance et je ne m’y attarde pas. 

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4 Août La nuit, nous sommes tourmentés par les insectes ailés; la lumière des lampes, qui brûlent auprès de Benten, les attire dans notre chambre, et je fais tout ce que je peux pour les chasser. Je les supporterais bien, y étant habituée — ils sont même quelquefois très jolis à voir voltiger autour de la moustiquaire — mais je veux calmer Pierre que ces bestioles irritent. Je m’aperçois que bien des choses lui déplaisent et je ne saurais dire si rien de ce qui nous entoure l’intéresse. Je commence à en éprouver un profond malaise . . .  10 Août Je n’osais pas me l’avouer; il s’ennuie. C’est un grand chagrin pour moi qui n’ai cessé de me mettre à ces pieds et de lui offrir le meilleur de moi, ainsi que cela se doit d’ailleurs. Hélas, nous ne nous servons pas du même langage! J’ai fait demander un dictionnaire; je l’attends; il m’aimerait peut-être mieux, si je pouvais lui parler et si je pouvais lui parler et si je pouvais l’entendre. Je voudrais apprendre le français en cachette pour lui faire une surprise; le secret de mes études serait peut-être difficile à garder, n’importe! je meurs d’envie d’essayer.  11 Août Ce sont les araignées maintenant qui l’horripilent!  12 Août Il prend des notes parfois sur un petit carnet, mais il ne lit jamais, du moins je ne lui ai jamais vu un livre dans les mains, pas même un journal. Et moi qui aime tant la lecture, je ne puis m’y livrer que lorsqu’il n’est pas là. Il paraît insensible à la vue des plus charmantes choses.Â� Décidément tout l’ennuie. Je n’ose plus lui faire admirer mes bouquets. Il renifle parfois, en faisant une vilaine grimace; le parfum subtil et fin, dont tout ici est

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imprégné, lui déplaît,€--il n’est pas en mon pouvoir d’y rien changer, — et c’est de l’air le plus dégoûté du monde qu’il repousse la petite pipe d’argent que je lui présente pour qu’il fume avec moi. C’est un plaisir bien innocent; je devrai peut-être m’en priver. Jusqu’aux plats qu’on me sert, qu’il persifle — et ses yeux prennent une expression funeste, quand Yves, gaîment, tourne autour de moi comme un gros chien, et que je le fais manger avec mes baguettes d’ivoire — jeu d’enfant auquel il se prête volontiers. Que se passe-t-il dans le cœur de Pierre? Je voudrais savoir. Dans mes insomnies, je vois un mur s’élever entre nous. Que vais-je devenir si cela continue! Je crains de n’être pour lui qu’un accessoire insignifiant. M’a-t’il jamais demandé si je l’aimais, ou seulement si je pourrais l’aimer un jour! Un jour . . . il s’en ira, bien loin, et je ne le renverrai plus jamais, et tout sera fini!  18 Août Il n’a qu’un sourire railleur pour tous les petits objets en papier que je sais si bien faire; des oiseaux, des fleurs, des arbustes . . . Ma musique l’agace; une seule fois il a paru y prendre plaisir: Oyouki et moi nous nous étions mises à travailler sérieusement. Je lui apprenais des airs de jadis. Nos deux samisens vibraient. Je chantais la ballade du «Â€Lotus expirant au bord du lac desséch逻. Les paroles de cette chanson me labouraient le cœur et je l’achevai dans un sanglot. Pierre était entré sans bruit; il m’écoutait, je ne me doutais pas de sa présence. Il me demanda de continuer. Etait-ce mes larmes qu’il voulait voir couler encore? . . . Mais Kan-Kou-rô étant arrivé pour lui parler avec un air de mystère, ils sortirent ensemble, et j’entendis Pierre faire la grosse voix, très en colère. Adieu chanson! Je suis descendue pour m’informer de la cause de ce nouvel ennui, auprès des vieux d’en bas. Ils ont cru comprendre par certains mots échappés à Kan-Kou-rô, qu’on réclame quelque chose de nous à la police, une simple formalité omise. «Â€ Y a-t-il de quoi se fâcher si fort, et dans tous les pays du monde est-ce que l’autorité ne doit pas être respectée? Au Japon, on est si doux pour les étrangers! Ils font tout ce qu’ils veulent et ne sont molestés par personne€». Ces observations me sont présentées très discrètement par Satô, qui est l’indulgence même; de plus c’est un excellent peintre; le monde des oiseaux n’a pas

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de secret pour lui et il excelle dans la représentation des échassiers; ce sont surtout des grues sous les pins — emblème de la longévité — qui ont fait sa réputation. Ce qui cause à Satô un vif chagrin, c’est le mépris que Pierre affecte à l’égard de ses œuvres, et même je crois qu’il lui en veut en peu pour ça, le pauvre! Un marin a bien le droit de ne pas se connaître en peinture, pourtant!  23 Août Cinq jours sans le voir! Une sorte d’engourdissement s’est emparé de mon être. Chaque matin, automatiquement, j’ai renouvelé les fleurs dans la maison; j’ai mis ma plus belle robe et je me suis défendu de pleurer pour qu’il ne me trouve pas trop laide au retour. Du balcon j’ai pu voir la Triomphante évoluer dans la baie. Je me console en supposant qu’il a été retenu par son service; il y a eu de gros orages, et la mer a été très mauvaise; les communications n’ont pas dû être faciles avec la côte . . . Enfin les voilà, Yves et lui; ils gravissent la pente qui mène à la maison. Comme je vais l’embrasser!  25 Août Yves dans la chambre voisine de la nôtre, où nous l’avons installé pour la nuit, fait la chasse aux moustiques en grommelant; il nous empêche de dormir; il serait plus simple de lui faire une petite place sous notre moustiquaire, pensons-nous. Il s’en suit un petit brouhaha. Par inadvertance, sans doute, Pierre a placé mon makoura entre le sien et celui du nouveau venu. Sans rien dire je remets les choses dans l’ordre convenable, Pierre au milieu. La nuit s’est achevée paisiblement et ce matin les deux inséparables sont partis joyeux. Je trouve sur le balcon son petit calepin qu’il a oublié. Mon dictionnaire n’est pas encore arrivé de Tokio; ça doit être si difficile à apprendre le français! Je crois qu’il faut y renoncer. Par désoeuvrement je copie lettre à lettre, au dos d’un éventail, cette phrase que je lui ai vu écrire sur la dernière de ces pages dont il vaut mieux sans doute que j’ignore le sens:

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«Â€Comme c’est éternellement joli, même au Japon, les matins de la campagne et les matins de la vie!€»  27 Août Aujourd’hui en nous promenant nous avons été faire une visite à ma famille. Lui, d’assez bonne humeur, a été très bien pour tout le monde, surtout pour ma mère, qui dans la médiocrité où elle est tombée, est restée si grande dame, et dont la gravité enjouée a paru l’impressionner beaucoup. Il a aussi très bien accueilli mes sœurs et mes frères. Le plus petit, après maintes singeries mignonnes, est venu s’endormir sur ses genoux. Il a admiré le jardin et loué le goût exquis qui a présidé aux arrangements intérieurs de la maison. Pendant quelques minutes tous mes chagrins furent oubliés. Mais ce rayon de soleil devait s’évanouir bientôt. Yves et Oyouki nous ayant rejoints, nous sommes partis pour une longue tournée d’achat de bibelots dans la ville. Pierre, trouvant tout détestable et rien à son goût, enrageait, malmenait tout le monde, et la politesse des marchands — qu’il trouve exagérée — ajoutait à son exaspération. Il me rendait honteuse . . .  . . . «Â€ De quel droit, petite Chrysanthème, vous permettez-vous de censurer votre maître? Auriez-vous déjà perdu, à un contact étranger, la notion juste de vos devoirs? Vous l’avez voulu, vous lui appartenez jusqu’à la mort, et ce n’est pas seulement votre corps, inerte et sans volonté, que vous lui devez, c’est votre sourire aussi et toutes vos grâces, et tout le charme de votre esprit de femme bien élevée et d’artiste. Et peu importe qu’il vous fasse souffrir, vous ne devez rien laisser paraître de votre souffrance.€» Ces paroles sévères de ma mère, auprès de qui, excédée, j’avais demandé de retourner passer la nuit, après cette triste promenade, bourdonnent à mes oreilles, tandisÂ� que, le cœur gonflé, je monte l’interminable escalier de granit qui mène au temple en fête, où je sais que Pierre doit finir sa soirée seul avec Yves. J’ai pris avec moi mon petit frère, comptant sur lui pour m’aider à trouver grâce. Yves, qui le premier m’a distinguée dans la foule, ne

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m’a pas été inutile non plus. Je me suis faite bien humble et Pierre a poussé la condescendance jusqu’à permettre que le petit, qui ne voulait plus me quitter, remontât avec nous à la maison.  1er Septembre Les jours suivent les nuits, les nuits suivent les jours, sans apporter grand changement dans notre manière de vivre. Tout en cherchant à m’étourdir, je m’ingénie à trouver les choses qui ne le fatiguent pas trop. Nous avons dans notre voisinage de très jolis enfants. Me souvenant du succès qu’avaient obtenu auprès de lui les mines de mon petit frère, je les attire chez nous. Il s’en amuse un instant comme de la musique que je fais encore parfois avec Oyouki; mais bien vite, comme s’il se reprochait une faiblesse, il reprend son air ennuyé, qui arrête toute effusion. C’est horrible de manquer de mots pour échanger ses idées; en être réduit à la pantomime! Moi je m’en contenterais puisque j’aime, mais lui . . . il est sans doute trop savant pour s’en accommoder. Depuis quelque temps il écrit beaucoup.  3 Septembre A-t-il deviné que j’avais une envie folle de visiter son grand navire? Il nous y a conduites aujourd’hui. On nous a tout montré. C’est très intéressant à voir une fois, mais je serais bien fâchée, s’il me fallait passer mon existence dans ce milieu noir et blanc, parmi tous ces canons et toutes ces grosses cordes. Par politesse j’ai cru devoir insister pour dire bonjour à Yves avant de quitter le bord. Pierre a eu l’air de trouver cela peu convenable . . .  4 Septembre Je ne peux lui cacher ma torture malgré tous mes efforts; ses manières sont devenues plus avenantes cependant depuis quelques jours, mais j’y vois poindre un sentiment de compassion, qui, loin de me calmer, me rend la vie plus lamentable. Quelque chose me dit que la fin est proche et le vertige me prend.

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 6 Septembre On a fait cadeau à Oyouki d’un petit appareil photographique, dont elle commence à se servir très adroitement, grâce aux leçons du professeur Takuma. Nous sommes allées ce matin nous faire photographier chez lui.  11 Septembre Pour être resté exposé au soleil hier, il a été très malade; je l’ai tenu dans mes bras longtemps. J’ai mis mes mains sur son front brûlant. Aujourd’hui il n’y paraît plus. Fiévreuse, moi aussi, je pensais en le caressant bien doucement, que s’il mourait, je mourrais après lui. Les âmes n’ont pas besoin de paroles pour s’entendre, il saurait alors combien je l’ai aimé.  17 Septembre Réveil affreux. En ouvrant les yeux — après une nuit passé à l’attendre — je vois Pierre debout, d’une main soulevant la gaze de la moustiquaire; de l’autre il tient une petite valise. J’ai compris; je retiens un cri; ce sont ses adieux qu’il vient me faire. . . . La journée s’est passée à emballer, Yves aidant. La Triomphante quitte Nagasaki demain soir. J’arrive à lui faire comprendre qu’il faut qu’il vienne m’embrasser avant le départ, puisqu’il ne peut pas se faire remplacer à bord cette nuit . . . Et Yves que je ne renverrai plus me serre la main une dernière fois, un peu trop fort.  18 Septembre Puisqu’il doit revenir aujourd’hui, je n’ai pas encore le droit de pleurer . . . et je chante, pour endormir ma pensée, la chanson lugubre de l’usurier, accompagnée de coups frappés avec une petite baguette sur les piastres neuves que Pierre m’a laissées. Cette chanson, bien connue au Japon, montre que l’avarice mène à tous les crimes et que l’argent est ce qu’il y a de pis au monde.

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Pour la dernière fois, il entre dans ma chambre, sans bruit, ainsi qu’on fait pour surprendre un enfant en faute. C’est une manie qu’il a, bien blessante, et qui m’a peut-être été plus cruelle que tout le reste. Il prend en m’abordant un air tout à fait impertinent que je ne lui ai pas encore vu; il vise du coin de l’œil les pièces blanches éparpillées autour de moi sur les tatamis. Est-ce qu’il croit, le malheureux, que je fais le moindre cas de ses piastres et que je les fais tinter pour savoir si elles sont fausses? C’est la suprême insulte! J’irai jusqu’au bout et ne laisserai rien paraître, comme je fis, la nuit où il plaça mon makoura à côté de celui de son ami — pour voir . . . quoi? Je me prosterne sur le seuil de la porte qu’il a franchi pour la dernière fois et je reste en cette attitude jusqu’à ce que s’éteigne le bruit de ses pas. Il ne peut se douter que c’est une morte qu’il vient de quitter. Ici s’arrêtent les notes du cahier rose. L’épilogue est bien Japonais. La délaissée voulant en finir avec l’existence, s’est jetée à la mer. Elle avait au cou cent piastres d’argent serrées dans un morceau de soie rare. Elle fut sauvée. On retrouva l’enveloppe de soie, elle contenait plus que de petits morceaux de papier adhérents au tissu mouillé — l’argent était resté au fond de l’eau. Ces petits papiers avaient été oubliés par M. Pierre Loti chez Madame Chrysanthème, qui les avait recueillis pieusement. Ils étaient couverts d’une écriture à moitié effacée par l’humidité. A grand peine on parvint à déchiffrer quelques mots par ci, par là, des phrases dans le genre de celles-ci: « Toujours du bizarre — Toutes les choses grimacent bizarrement — Etranges symboles — Mots étranges — C’est incroyable que cela signifie quelque chose, ces mots baroques — Une étrange odeur — Sous de très étranges portiques — Croyances drôles — Des ivoires drôlatiques — La plus drôle de toutes les villes — Toutes sortes de petits métiers impayables — M. Sucre et Mme Prune, deux impayables — Des Japoneries indicibles — Trop de Japoneries — Je ne sais quoi d’incompréhensible — Je ne sais quoi d’incidible — Des fleurs invraisemblables — Tout cela

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est inimaginable — Tant qu’à épouser un bibelot, j’aurais peine à trouver mieux — Une saugrenuité vague et froide — Quand on arrange les choses on les dérange toujours — Nous ne sommes pas les pareils de ces gens-là — Par un temps de pluie il fait toujours bon rentrer chez soi — Cela rentre dans ma manière de clore mes existences exotiques par une fête — L’ensemble de ma personne parle à son imagination.€»

Inutile d’ajouter que cette étonnante collection de banalités, de solécismes, de truismes, de non-sens et de platitudes, se retrouve considérablement augmentée dans «Â€ Madame Chrysanthème€ ». (CalmanLévy, édit.) dont il a été tiré cent exemplaires «Â€sur Japon€». Brignogan En Plounéour-Trez September 1893.

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Part II selections from

Madame Chrysanthème by pierre loti

and

Walks through Japan by emile guimet

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The following selections from Emile Guimet’s Promenades japonaises (two volumes published in 1878 and 1880) and Pierre Loti’s 1887 Madame Chrysanthème exemplify the precedents Régamey had in mind when he composed The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème. To understand why Loti’s novel so provoked Régamey, it is useful to compareÂ� his account with that of Guimet, Régamey’s traveling companion, focusing not only on what these authors said of Japan, but on how they presented themselves as Westerners in the East. Guimet was eager to distinguish himself from the general run of Westerners in Japan, as is clear from his “Little Dialog by Way of Advice for the Reader,” which appeared thirty pages into the first volume of Promenades japonaises. The texts reproduced here allow readers to assess these claims for distinction by comparing the first chapters of Guimet’s and Loti’s accounts of travel to Japan. Because both begin by describing their arrival by ship, the comparison highlights first the common range of references in Western visions of Japan and then the attitudes toward those references that distinguish Guimet. Like other nineteenth-century visitors to Japan, Guimet and Loti see the same things (Japanese harbor craft, naked sailors) and draw upon the same associations with the imagery on Japanese decorative objects, which had become a standard element of European interiors. Both authors, moreover, strive to see vestiges of Japanese traditions that

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are quickly disappearing under the influence of modernization. For Guimet, this nostalgia is focused on the look of the people (the beautiful old-fashioned servants), whereas Loti focuses on the look of the place (the “pagodas” lurking behind the modern industrial waterfront with its American bars). Beyond these initial similarities, however, crucial distinctions emerge in the attitudes of these Europeans toward the modernizing Japan that they see. Loti, the imperial soldier, uses the impersonal French un (one) to identify both the agent of the modern corruption that makes the world the same all over and the put-upon traveler who is disappointed by this uniformity (my translation uses the passive voice as the smoothest English equivalent to the French impersonal pronoun). Loti’s phrasing assumes that change comes—without imputation of blame or any other form of analysis—from the same people who are disappointed not to find Japan the “Eden” it first appeared: the West is both agent and observer, and Japan is essentially passive. Guimet’s text, in contrast, recognizes that the changes sweeping Japan are reactions to the situation of imperialism. Both the profusion of Japanese objects flooding Western markets and the young Japanese engineers returning from study abroad are responses to the invasion of Japan by “peoples who claim to be civilized.” If the young Japanese engineers are less beautiful—less Homeric—than their servants in kimonos, that is something for which European visitors bear some responsibility.1 Despite their nostalgic disappointment with the look of the modern Japanese among their fellow passengers on board the Alaska, moreover, Guimet and Régamey forged relationships with one of these young men, Soïchiro Matsmoto. “Twenty-three days on the ocean helps to bond men,” Guimet commented, “so it happens that this foreigner whom luck threw into our room on board ship is our friend.”2 During the Pacific crossing, Matsmoto worked with Régamey (as mentioned in the Introduction) to translate a Japanese story, which Régamey published in a lush illustrated edition in 1882. Régamey dedicated this volume to his Japanese collaborators, beginning with Matsmoto: “Without you, I would still not know the strange romantic adventures of the unfortunate Okoma, for it was during our crossing from San Francisco to Yokohama that I read with you in this very text this celebrated tale of the land of the Rising Sun.” Once in Japan, Régamey and Guimet visited Matsmoto at his home in Tokyo, and he became their guide when they visited the temples and parks of the city. Guimet and Régamey’s other translators were provided by Léon

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Dury, the French consul in Nagasaki between 1860 and 1866, who had returned to Japan in 1867 as a professor of French. Dury drew his students from the upper echelons of Japanese society, and several went on to high-level careers in the Japanese government. Several others followed Guimet when he returned to France to assist in his project to establish a museum dedicated to Oriental religions, and three of these are also thanked in Régamey’s dedication of Okoma.3 The last of these, Tadazoumi Yamata, after working with Guimet, was appointed Japanese consul in Lyon, where he oversaw the importation of Japanese silk and married a Lyonaise; their daughter, Kikou Yamata, became a prominent francophone author of Japanesethemed books and was inducted into the Legion of Honor in 1957. Despite their shared nostalgia for the aesthetics of Old Japan, therefore, Guimet and Régamey manifested an engagement with a generation of Japanese modernizers that contrasts sharply with Loti’s reaction to modern Japan. After disembarking in the Westernized city of Yokohama on a return trip to Japan in 1900, he announced, “No! I return aboard, unwilling to learn anything more of this side of Japan.”4 Loti’s revulsion from the modernized, masculinized twentiethcentury Japan is the flip side of his original view of Japan as essentially feminine and passive. From the opening lines of Madame Chrysanthème, as can be seen here, Loti anthropomorphizes Japan as a flirting female blowing ineffectively against the encroaching sailors to push them away. He goes on to describe the sailors’ gradual penetration of Japan through its “shadowy corridor”: “One might have said that this Japan had opened itself before us, magically ripping apart to allow us to penetrate into its very heart.” Such gender dynamics continue to differentiate Guimet’s and Loti’s accounts of Japan, as demonstrated by their contrasting accounts of artists at work. Loti in Madame Chrysanthème describes his Western artist—Loti himself—surrounded by a gaggle of admiring Japanese women. Guimet in Promenades japonaises pits Régamey in a manto-man contest against a Japanese artist who is very much his equal. Guimet’s description of the Japanese artist Kyosai (Kiosaï) constantly offering examples of his accomplished and provocative work to his interlocutors may offer one answer to a question that has puzzled art historians: the source of Van Gogh’s belief that Japanese artists “used to exchange works among themselves very often,” a conviction that prompted the now-famous exchange of paintings among Van Gogh, Emile Bernard, and Paul Gauguin. Guimet’s presentation of the

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friendly rivalry of Kyosai and Régamey accords with Van Gogh’s claim that Japanese artists lived in “some sort of fraternal community,” which inspired his efforts to create an artists’ colony at Arles.5 By this point in Guimet’s text, the earlier invocations of classical precedent have turned to ironic self-deprecation. No longer faulting the Japanese for sacrificing the aura of the ancients so many Western visitors saw in traditional Japanese culture, Guimet casts himself as a hapless imitator of Homeric rhetoric in his effort to describe the contest between the artists: “Oh Muse, as Homer would say, inspire me!” Guimet’s account of Kyosai concludes by emphasizing Japan’s determination to modernize on its own terms: “this is how, in Japan, the old dogmas are transformed and replaced by new ideas.” In contrast, Loti’s dubious insight, at the conclusion of his chapter on artists, concerns yet another Japanese woman he imagines is infatuated with him. Whether or not one reads Loti’s exaggerated self-regard as ironic— and the reception of his novel suggests that most readers did not—the ultimate effect of his account of his sailor’s sojourn in Japan was to emphasize the exotic, to insist on the differences between East and West, to occlude any opportunities for empathy and understanding. Guimet’s text takes the opposite tack, acknowledging Japanese aspirations to modernize and presenting individual Japanese as effective interpreters of their own culture. Ultimately, however, while Guimet’s scholarship was respected, it was Loti’s version of Japan that was loved by audiences in France and beyond.

N otes 1. Régamey, in a letter to his father, described the “comical” (cocasse) contrast between the servants and the “young Japanese engineers . . . whose Yankee stove-pipe hats look so funny in the presence of this extremely Oriental ceremony” (8 September 1876, in Keiko Omoto and Francis Macouin, Quand le Japon s’ouvrit au monde: Emile Guimet et les arts d’Asie [Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1990], 144). 2. Emile Guimet, Promenades japonaises, vol. 2, 60. 3. On Dury and his students, see Omoto and Macouin, Quand le Japon s’ouvrit au monde, 24, 91–92. 4. Pierre Loti, La Troisième Jeunesse de Madame Prune, translated by S. R. C. Plimsoll as Madame Prune (New York: Frederick Stokes, 1905), 198. 5. Vincent van Gogh, quoted in Tsukasa Ko¯ dera, “Japan as Primitivistic Utopia: Van Gogh’s Japonisme Portraits,” Simiolus 14, nos. 3–4 (1984): 201. Ko¯ dera reports that, in fact, “the exchange of works was not characteristic of Japanese painters . . . and to my knowledge it is not mentioned in any of the writings which van Gogh had read. . . . He may have been stimulated by very fragmentary passages in some literary sources.”

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C hapter I At the break of dawn, we spied Japan.1 Just at the predicted time, it appeared: a point still far away but precise in this ocean that had been for so many days a great void. At first it was no more than a series of pink mountaintops (the foremost archipelago of Fukaï in the rising sun). But behind these, all along the horizon, we soon saw, like a thickness in the air or a veil hovering on the water: this was it, the real Japan, and little by little from this great muddled cloud emerged the altogether solid outlines that were the mountains of Nagasaki. The wind was against us, a fresh breeze that grew steadily stronger, as if the country were blowing with all its strength to push us away from it.—The sea, the ropes, the whole ship pitched and throbbed. E xcerpt

from

C hapter II

By three o’clock in the afternoon, everything in the distance had pulled closer, close enough for rocky outcroppings and masses of greenery to hang over us. 1. This translation presents all of Chapters 1 and 33 and the first parts of Chapters 2 and 51.Â�All ellipses are in the original; nothing has been omitted from this translation. [cr]

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And now we entered into a kind of shadowy corridor between two very high mountain ranges that progressed with a bizarre symmetryÂ� —like the painted wings of a stage set simulating great depth, very beautiful, but not very realistic.—One might have said that this Japan had opened itself before us, magically ripping apart to allow us to penetrate into its very heart. At the end of this strange, long bay was supposed to be Nagasaki, but that was still out of sight. Everything was wonderfully green. The brisk sea breeze suddenly slackened, giving way to calm. The air, now very hot, was filled with the smell of flowers. And from this valley rose the astonishing music of crickets calling from one shore to another. All the mountains echoed their innumerable chirpings so that the land seemed to produce a noise like perpetually vibrating crystal. In the passage we brushed past a small tribe of large junks, which glided along very gently powered by an imperceptible breeze. They were silent on the barely stirring water; their white sails, stretched out on horizontal ropes, sagged weakly, falling into a thousand folds like window shades; their intricate decks rose up like castles in the style of ships of the middle ages. Surrounded by the intense green of the mountain walls, they looked white as snow. What a land of greenery and shadow, this Japan, what an unexpected Eden! . . . Out on the great ocean, it must have been daylight still, but here between the banks of this valley it seemed like evening already. Up above, the summits were brilliantly lit; below the wooded areas bordering the water were in the shadow of twilight. The junks passing by so white against the dark leaves were piloted noiselessly—marvelously—by little yellow men, completely naked with their hair combed and parted like women.—As we gradually pushed through the green corridor, the scents became more penetrating and the chirping of the crickets swelled like an orchestral crescendo. Up high in the luminous slit of sky between the mountains soared some kind of falcons crying “Han! Han! Han!” with the resonance of a human voice. Their cries fell sorrowfully, prolonged by the echo. All this fresh, exuberant nature carried with it a Japanese strangeness located in the indefinably bizarre mountaintops and, if one may say so, the unreality of things that are too pretty. The trees arrange themselves like bouquets with the same graceful preciousness as on lacquered panels. Great rocks rise up on end in exaggerated poses right next to breastlike hills covered with soft grasses. The various

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elements of landscape find themselves thrown together as if they were artificial. . . . And, looking carefully, we saw here and there—usually built out over a cliff—some kind of mysterious little old pagoda half hidden in the greenery of the overhanging trees. For new arrivals such as ourselves, this, more than anything else, from the beginning struck a distant note and gave the feeling that in this country the Spirits, the woodland Gods, the classical symbols charged with guarding over the countryside, were unknown and unknowable. . . . When Nagasaki appeared, it was a disappointing sight. At the foot of overarching green mountains was a completely nondescript city. In front, a jumble of ships bearing all the flags of the world, steamships as elsewhere, black smoke, and factories on the docks—in fact, all the common things seen everywhere with not one detail missing. There will come a time when the earth will be unfit for living, when it will have been made the same from one end to the other, when not even attempts at travel will afford a little distraction. . . . Around six o’clock, we noisily dropped anchor surrounded by a great many boats, and soon thereafter we were invaded. Invaded by mercantile Japan, borne to us with comic zeal by the junkful and in smaller boats too, like a rising tide. These good people, both men and women, entered in a long, steady line, with no shouts, no argument, no noise, each with a smiling deference so that it was impossible to be angry, and in the end, by reciprocal effect, we ourselves were smiling and even bowing. They carried on their back all kinds of little baskets, little boxes, containers of all shapes devised in the most ingenious ways to fit inside one another and then multiply infinitely until they were everywhere. They pulled from these all sorts of unexpected, unimaginable things: screens, shoes, soaps, lanterns, cuff links, live crickets that sang in tiny cages, jewelry, tame white mice trained to turn in little cardboard wheels, lewd photographs, piping hot soups and stews all ready to be portioned out to the crew;— and china, legions of vases, teapots, cups, tiny pots and plates . . . With the flick of a wrist, all this was unwrapped and displayed on the deck with great dexterity and a certain skill in the arrangement. The vendors sat monkey-style, hands on feet, behind their trinkets— always smiling,Â� always bending in half with the most gracious bows. The deck of the ship under these multicolored heaps of goods sud-

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denly looks like an immense bazaar. And the crew, highly entertained and very cheerful, tramp through the piles, taking the market women by the chin, buying everything, scattering their silver dollars as they please. . . . But my God, how ugly they all are, shabby and hideous! Given my plans of marriage, I grow distant and disenchanted. . . . Yves and I were on duty until the next morning, and after the initial commotion that, on deck, always attends dropping anchor (launches to send out, ladders, booms to secure)—we had nothing else to do but watch. And we said to each other: Where are we really?—In the United States?—In the English colony of Australia,—or in New Zealand?? . . .Â�Â� Consular buildings, customs offices, workshops, a dock occupied by a Russian frigate, an entire European town with villas up on the heights, and by the water American bars catering to the sailors.—Over there, it is true, over there behind and farther away than these ordinary things, all the way at the end of the great green valley, are thousands and thousands of little dark houses. From this rather strange jumble peek out here and there some taller roofs painted a dark red. It must be here that the true, old Japanese Nagasaki still exists . . . And in those quarters, who knows, there simpers behind some paper screen a little woman with catlike eyes . . . whom perhaps in two or three days (having no time to spare) I will marry!! . . . I don’t care. I can no longer envision this little person very well; the market women with the white mice have spoiled my view. Now I am worried she will look like them. . . . C hapter XXXIII With great delicacy, Monsieur Sucre’s fine brush dipped in India ink has drawn onto a pretty piece of rice paper two charming storks, which he offers me in the most friendly way to remember him by. They are in my cabin onboard, and when I see them, a vision seems to return of Monsieur Sucre drawing them, his hand floating with such elegant ease. The cup in which Monsieur Sucre mixes his ink is itself a veritable jewel. It is a block of jade cut to look like a little lake, its border elaborated with rock gardens. And on this border, there is a little mama toad, also of jade, who seems about to bathe in the little lake where Monsieur Sucre tends a few drops of very black liquid. And this mama

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toad has four little baby toads, also of jade, one perched on her head and three more frolicking under her stomach. Monsieur Sucre has painted a great many storks over the course of his life, and he truly excels in depicting groups, duets, if one may put it that way, of this type of bird. Few Japanese have the gift of rendering this subject in a style so rapid and so elegant: first the two beaks, then the four feet; after that the backs, the feathers, snap, snap, snap—a dozen strokes of his skillful brush manipulated by a prettily posed hand—and there it is, every time a success! Monsieur Kangarou says, without seeming to find any fault in it, that once upon a time this talent was very useful to Monsieur Sucre. It seems that Madame Prune . . . my God, how to put it? . . . and who would suspect it now, seeing this elderly woman so devout, so sedate, her eyebrows shaved so properly? . . . —in short, Madame Prune, it seems, once received a great many gentlemen—gentlemen who always came alone—and that gave rise to speculation. . . . Well, when Madame Prune was busy with a visitor, if another one happened to arrive, her ingenious husband would induce him to wait, distracting him in the foyer by quickly offering to paint him some storks in various poses. . . . Thus it is that in Nagasaki, all the Japanese gentlemen of a certain age have in their collections two or three of these little stork paintings, which they owe to the ever so delicate and personal skills of Monsieur Sucre. E xcerpt

from

C hapter LI

The abrupt order arrived during siesta time: we would leave tomorrow for China, for Tchéfou (a terrible place located in the Gulf of Pékin).— It was Yves who came to wake me in my cabin with this news. —I absolutely must arrange to go onshore this evening,Â�he tells me while I try to shake the sleep from my eyes—for one thing, it would only be to help you move out up there. . . . And he looked out my porthole, raising his head toward the green hills in the direction of Diou-djen-ji and our echoing little old house, hidden from view by the folds of the mountain. It is very kind of him to want to help me to move out up there; but I think he also wants to say his farewells to his Japanese girlfriends, and truly I can’t begrudge him that.

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And so he arranges, without my intervention, permission for five o’clock, after drill and maneuvers. For my part, I rent a sampan and leave right away. In the bright sun of midday amid the trembling cries of the crickets, I climb to Diou-djen-ji. The footpath is empty; the plants wilt under the heat. Nevertheless, here is Madame Jonquille out for a stroll in this bright hour of the grasshoppers, shading her delicate face and figure under an enormous parasol, a paper circle supported by many closely nested ribs and decorated with fantastically gaudy designs. She recognizes me from a distance and, laughing as usual, runs up to me. I tell her of our departure—and her childlike face contracts into a great pout. . . . Come, can this really be sadness? . . . —Is she going to cry? . . . —No! No, it turns into a fit of laughter, doubtless a little nervous, but unexpected and disconcerting—dry and crystalline in the silence of these hot pathways like a cascade of little fake pearls. Well good, here is an example of a marriage that will be broken without sadness!—This scatterbrain with her laughter makes me impatient, and I turn my back on her to continue on my way. Up there Chrysanthème is sleeping, stretched out on the floor; the house is completely open, and a warm mountain breeze passes through. We were to host a tea party that evening and there are already flowers everywhere in accordance with my directions. Still more lotus flowers in our vases, beautiful pink lotus flowers, the last of the season this time, I believe.—They must have been ordered from the specialized florists who live out near the Great Temple, and they will cost me dearly. With a few light taps of a fan, I awaken this startled mousmé and, curious about the impression I will make, tell her that I am leaving. —She jumps up, rubs her sleepy eyelids with the backs of her little hands, then looks at me and bows her head: an emotion something like sadness passes through her eyes. This little heartbreak is no doubt for Yves. The news races through the house. Mademoiselle Oyouki rushes up the stairs four at a time with little

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baby tears in each eye; she kisses me with her plump red lips that always leave a wet circle on my cheek;—then quickly draws a square of tissue paper from her dangling sleeve, wipes her furtive tears, blows her little nose, rolls the leaf into a tiny ball,—and throws it onto the parasol of a passer-by in the street. Then Madame Prune appears, upset, distraught, assumingÂ�successive poses of increasing consternation. Whatever can be wrong with this old woman, and why is she hovering around me like this so as to get in my way whenever I turn around?? . . . It is unbelievable how much I still have to do on this last day with errands to run in the rickshaw to trinket stores, tradesmen, and packers. Nevertheless, before they pack up my rooms, I want to take the time to sketch them . . . as before in Istanbul. . . . It really seems that everything I do here is a bitter joke on what I did there. . . . But this time it is not that I care for this dwelling; it is simply because it is pretty, but peculiar; the drawing will be a curiosity preserving it. I therefore fetch a notebook page and get right to work, seated on the ground leaning on my desk decorated with carvings of grasshoppers,— while behind me the three women crowd close, very close, following the movements of my pencil with amazed attention. Never have they seen anyone draw realistically, since Japanese art is completely conventional, and my style delights them. Perhaps I do not have the certainty and facility of Monsieur Sucre when he combines his charming storks, but I claim a few ideas about perspective that he lacks; and then I was taught to draw things as I see them without giving them ingeniously exaggerated and contorted poses; so the three Japanese women are enraptured by how real my sketch looks. Exclaiming with little cries of admiration, they point their fingers as the shapes and shadows of objects emerge darkly on my paper. Chrysanthème looks at me with a new tinge of interest: —Anata ichiban! she says. (Literally: “You first!” which means “You’re someone altogether top rank!”) Mademoiselle Oyouki outdoes even this appreciation and cries out in a burst of enthusiasm: —Anata bakari! (“You alone!” which is to say “In the whole wide world there is only you; all the others, compared to you, are just small fry.”) As for Madame Prune, she says nothing, but I can see she thinks no

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less of it; her prostrate pose and her hand repeatedly brushing mine confirm the idea that her distraught manner just now first made me realize: evidently my persona sparks her imagination, which remains romantic into old age!—I will leave with the regret of having understood too late!! . . .

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C hapitre I Au petit jour naissant, nous aperçûmes le Japon. Juste à l’heure prévue, il apparut, encore lointain, en un point précis de cette mer qui, pendant tant de jours, avait été l’étendue vide. Ce ne fut d’abord qu’une série de petits sommets roses (l’archipel avancé des Fukaï, au soleil levant). Mais derrière, tout le long de l’horizon, on vit bientôt comme une lourdeur en l’air, comme un viole pesant sur les eaux: c’était cela, le vrai Japon, et peu à peu, dans cette sorte de grande nuée confuse, se découpèrent des silhouettes tout à fait opaques qui étaient les montagnes de Nagasaki. Nous avions vent debout, une brise fraîche qui augmentait toujours, comme si ce pays eût soufflé de toutes ses forces contre nous pour nous éloigner de lui. — La mer, les cordages, le navire, étaient agités et bruissants. C hapitre II [ extrait ] Vers trios heures du soir, toutes ces choses lointaines s’étaient rapprochées, rapprochées jusqu’à nous surplomber de leurs masses rocheuses ou de leurs fouillis de verdure. Et nous entrions maintenant dans une espèce de couloir ombreux, entre deux rangées de très hautes montagnes, qui se succédaient avec une bizarrerie symétrique — comme les «Â€portants » d’un décor tout en

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profondeur, extrêmement beau, mais pas assez naturel. — On eût dit que ce Japon s’ouvrait devant nous, en une déchirure enchantée, pour nous laisser pénétrer dans son coeur même. Au bout de cette baie longue étrange, il devait y avoir Nagasaki qu’on ne voyait pas encore. Tout était admirablement vert. La grande brise du large, brusquement tombée, avait fait place au calme; l’air, devenu très chaud, se remplissait de parfums de fleurs. Et, dans cette vallée, il se faisait une étonnante musique de cigales, elles se répondaient d’une rive à l’autre; toutes ces montagnes résonnaient de leurs bruissements innombrables; tout ce pays rendait comme une incessante vibration de cristal. Nous frôlions au passage des peuplades de grandes jonques, qui glissaient tout doucement, poussées par des brises imperceptibles; sur l’eau à peine froissée, on ne les entendait pas marcher; leurs voiles blanches, tendues sur des vergues horizontales, retombaient mollement, drapées à mille plis comme des stores; leurs poupes compliquées se relevaient en château, comme celles des nefs du moyen âge. Au milieu du vert intense de ces murailles de montagnes, elles avaient une blancheur neigeuse. Quel pays de verdure et d’ombre, ce Japon, quel Eden inattendu! ... Dehors, en pleine mer, il devait faire encore grand jour; mais ici, dans l’encaissement de cette vallée, on avait déjà une impression de soir; au-dessous des sommets très éclairés, les bases, toutes les parties plus touffues avoisinant les eaux, étaient dans une pénombre de crépuscule. Ces jonques qui passaient, si blanches sur le fond sombre des feuillages, étaient manœuvrées sans bruit, merveilleusement, par de petits hommes jaunes, tout nus avec de longs cheveux peignés en bandeaux de femme. — A mesure qu’on s’enfonçait dans le couloir vert, les senteurs devenaient plus pénétrantes et le tintement monotone des cigales s’enflait comme un crescendo d’orchestre. En haut, dans la découpure lumineuse du ciel entre les montagnes, planaient des espèces de gerfauts qui faisaient: «Â€Han! Han! Han!€» avec un son profond de voix humaine; leurs cris détonnaient là tristement, prolongés par l’écho. Toute cette nature exubérante et fraîche portait en elle-même une étrangeté japonaise; cela résidait dans je ne sais quoi de bizarre qu’avaient les cimes des montagnes et, si l’on peut dire, dans l’invraisemblance de certaines choses trop jolies. Des arbres s’arrangeaient en bouquets, avec la même grâce précieuse que sur les plateaux de laque. De grands rochers surgissaient tout debout, dans des poses exagérées, à côté de mamelons aux formes douces, couverts de pelouses tendres:

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des éléments disparates de paysage se trouvaient rapprochés, comme dans les sites artificiels. . . . Et, en regardant bien, on apercevait çà et là, le plus souvent bâtie en porte-à-faux au-dessus d’un abîme, quelque vieille petite pagode mystérieuse, à demi cachée dans le fouillis des arbres suspendus: cela surtout jetait dès l’abord, aux nouveaux arrivants comme nous, la note lointaine et donnait le sentiment que, dans cette contrée, les Esprits, les Dieux des bois, les symboles antiques chargés de veiller sur les campagnes, étaient inconnus et incompréhensibles . . . Quand Nagasaki parut, ce fut une déception pour nos yeux: au pied des vertes montagnes surplombantes, c’était une ville tout à fait quelconque. En avant, un pêle-mêle de navires portant tous les pavillons du monde, des paquebots comme ailleurs, des fumées noires et, sur les quais, des usines; en fait de choses banales déjà vues partout, rien n’y manquait. Il viendra un temps où la terre sera bien ennuyeuse à habiter, quand on l’aura rendue pareille d’un bout à l’autre, et qu’on ne pourra même plus essayer de voyager pour se distraire un peu . . . Nous fîmes, vers six heures, un mouillage très bruyant, au milieu d’un tas de navires qui étaient là, et tout aussitôt nous fûmes envahis. Envahis par un Japon mercantile, empressé, comique, qui nous arrivait à pleine barque, à pleine jonque, comme une marée montante: des bonshommes et des bonnes femmes entrant en longue file ininterrompue, sans cris, sans contestations, sans bruit, chacun avec une révérence si souriante qu’on n’osait pas se fâcher et qu’à la fin, par effet réflexe, on souriait soi-même, on saluait aussi. Sur leur dos ils apportaient tous des petits paniers, des petites caisses, des récipients de toutes les formes, inventés de la manière la plus ingénieuse pour s’emboîter, pour se contenir les uns les autres et puis se multiplier ensuite jusqu’à l’encombrement, jusqu’à l’infini; il en sortait des choses inattendues, inimaginables; des paravents, des souliers, du savon, des lanternes; des boutons de manchettes, des cigales en vie chantant dans des petites cages; de la bijouterie, et des souris blanches apprivoisées sachant faire tourner des petits moulins en carton; des photographies obscènes; des soupes et des ragoûts, dans des écuelles, tout chauds, tout prêts à être servis par portions à l’équipage; — et des porcelaines, des légions de potiches, de théières, de tasses, de petits

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pots et d’assiettes . . . En un tour de main, tout cela, déballé, étalé par terre avec une prestesse prodigieuse et un certain art d’arrangement; chaque vendeur accroupi à la singe, les mains touchant les pieds, derrière son bibelot — et toujours souriant, toujours cassé en deux par les plus gracieuses révérences. Et le pont du navire, sous ces amas de choses multicolores, ressemblant tout à coup à un immense bazar. Et les matelots, très amusés, très en gaieté, piétinant dans les tas, prenant le menton des marchandes, achetant de tout, semant à plaisir leurs piastres blanches . . . Mais, mon Dieu, que tout ce monde était laid, mesquin, grotesque! Etant donnés mes projets de mariage, j’en devenais très rêveur, très désenchanté . . . Nous étions de service, Yves et moi, jusqu’au lendemain matin, et, après les premières agitations qui, à bord, suivent toujours les mouillages — (embarcations à mettre à la mer; échelles, tangons à pousser dehors) — nous n’avions plus rien à faire qu’à regarder. Et nous nous disions: Ou sommes-nous vraiment? — Aux Etats-Unis? — Dans une colonie anglaise d’Australie, — ou à la Nouvelle-Zélande?? . . . Des consulats, des douanes, des manufactures; un dock où trône une frégate russe; toute une concession européenne avec des villas sur les hauteurs, et, sur les quais, des bars américains à l’usage des matelots. — Là-bas, il est vrai, là-bas, derrière et plus loin que ces choses communes, tout au fond de l’immense vallée verte, des milliers et des milliers des maisonnettes noirâtres, un fouillis d’un aspect un peu étrange d’où émergent çà et là de plus hautes toitures peintes en rouges sombre: probablement le vrai, le vieux Nagasaki japonais qui subsiste encore . . . Et dans ces quartiers, qui sait, minaudant derrière quelque paravent de papier, la petite femme à yeux de chat . . . que peut-être . . . avant deux ou trois jours (n’ayant pas de temps à perdre) j’aurais épousée!! . . . C’est égal, je ne la vois plus bien, cette petite personne; les marchandes de souris blanches qui sont ici m’ont gâté son image; j’ai peur à présent qu’elle ne leur ressemble . . .Â� C hapitre XXXIII M. Sucre, avec mille grâces, du bout de son fin pinceau trempé dans l’encre de Chine, a tracé sur une jolie feuille de papier de riz deux cigognes charmantes et me les a offertes de la manière la plus aimable, comme un souvenir de lui. Elles sont là, dans ma chambre de bord, et,

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dès que je les regarde, je crois revoir M. Sucre, les traçant à main levée avec une si élégante aisance. Le godet dans lequel M. Sucre délaie son encre est en lui-même un vrai bijou. Taillé dans un bloc de jade, il représente un petit lac avec un rebord fouillé en manière de rocailles. Et sur ce rebord, il y a une petite maman crapaud, également en jade, qui s’avance comme pour se baigner dans le petit lac où M. Sucre entretient quelques gouttelettes d’un liquide bien noir. Et cette maman crapaud a quatre enfants crapauds également en jade, l’un perché sur sa tête, les trois autres folâtrant sous son ventre. M. Sucre a peint beaucoup de cigognes dans le courant de sa vie, et il excelle vraiment à représenter des groupes, des duos, si l’on peut s’exprimer ainsi, de ce genre d’oiseau. Peu de Japonais ont le don d’interpréter ce sujet d’une manière aussi rapide et aussi galante: d’abord les deux becs, puis les quatre pattes; ensuite les dos, les plumes, crac, crac, crac, — une douzaine de coups de son habile pinceau, tenu d’une main très joliment posée, — et ça y est, et d’un réussi toujours! M. Kangourou raconte, sans y trouver à redire d’ailleurs, qu’autrefois ce talent a rendu de grands services à M. Sucre. C’est que madame Prune, paraît-il . . . mon Dieu, comment dire cela . . . et qui s’en douterait à présent, en voyant une vieille dame si dévote, si bien posée, ayant des sourcils rasés si correctement . . . — enfin madame Prune, paraît-il, recevait autrefois beaucoup de messieurs, — des messieurs qui venaient toujours isolément, — et cela donnait à penser . . . Or, quand madame Prune était occupée avec une visite, si un nouvel arrivant se présentait, son ingénieux mari, pour le faire attendre, le captiver dans l’antichambre, le retenir, s’offrait aussitôt à lui peindre quelques cigognes, dans des attitudes variées . . . Voilà comment, à Nagasaki, tous les messieurs japonais d’un certain age possèdent dans leurs collections deux ou trois de ces petits tableaux de genre, qu’ils doivent au talent si fin et si personnel de M. Sucre. C hapitre LI [ extrait ] Pendant l’heure de la sieste arrive l’ordre brusque de partir demain pour la Chine, pour Tchéfou (un lieu affreux situé dans le golfe de Pékin). C’est Yves qui vient me réveiller dans ma chambre de bord, pour me l’apprendre.

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— Il faut absolument que je me débrouille pour aller à terre ce soir, dit-il, pendant que j’achève de secouer mon sommeil, — d’abord, quand ce ne serait que pour vous aider à faire votre déménagement là-haut . . . Et il regarde pour mon sabord, levant la tête vers les cimes vertes, dans la direction de Diou-djen-dji et de notre vieille maisonnette sonore, qu’un repli de montagne nous cache. C’est très gentil de sa part, ce désir de m’aider dans mon déménagement là-haut; mais je crois aussi qu’il tient à faire ses adieux à ses petites amies japonaises, et vraiment je ne puis lui en vouloir. Il se débrouille en effet et obtient, sans que je m’en mêle, la permission pour ce soir cinq heures, après l’exercice et la manœuvre. Quant à moi, je pars tout de suite, dans un sampan de louage. Au grand soleil de midi, au bruit tremblant des cigales, je monte à Diou-djen-dji. Les sentiers sont solitaires; les plantes, accablées de chaleur. Cependant voici madame Jonquille, qui se promène, à cette heure lumineuse des sauterelles, abritant sa délicate personne et son fin minois sous un immense parasol en papier, tout rond, à nervures très rapprochées et à grands bariolages fantasques. Elle me reconnaît de loin et, rieuse comme toujours, accourt audevant de moi. Je lui annonce notre départ, — et une grosse moue contracte sa figure enfantine . . . Allons, est-ce qu’elle en a du chagrin, vraiment? . . .Â� Est-ce qu’elle va pleurer? . . . — Non! Non; cela tourne en un accès de rire, un peu nerveux sans doute, mais inattendu, déconcertant, — sec et cristallin, dans le silence de ces sentiers chauds, comme une dégringolade de petites perles fausses. Ah! bien, par exemple, voilà un mariage qui sera rompu sans douleur! — Elle m’impatiente, cette linotte, avec son rire, et je lui tourne le dos pour continuer ma route. Là-haut, Chrysanthème dort, étendue sur le plancher; la maison est complètement ouverte et une tiède brise de montagne passe au travers. Précisément nous devions donner un thé ce soir, et, d’après mes indications, il y a déjà des fleurs partout. Encore des lotus dans nos vases, de beaux lotus roses; les derniers de la saison, cette fois, je

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pense. — On a dû les commander chez ces fleuristes spéciaux qui demeurent là-bas, dans les quartiers du Grand Temple, et ils vont me coûter très cher. A petits coups légers d’éventail, je réveille cette mousmé surprise, et je lui annonce que je m’en vais, curieux de l’impression que je vais produire. — Elle se redresse, frotte, avec le revers de ses petites mains, ses paupières alourdies, puis me regarde et baisse la tête: quelque chose comme un sentiment de tristesse passe dans ses yeux. C’est pour Yves, sans doute, ce petit serrement de cœur. La nouvelle court la maison. Mademoiselle Oyouki monte quatre à quatre, ayant une demi-larme de bébé dans chaque œil; elle m’embrasse avec ses grosses lèvres rouges, qui font toujours un rond mouillé sur ma joue; — puis, vite, tire de sa grande manche un carré de papier de soie, essuie ces pleurs furtifs, mouche son petit nez, roule la feuille en boulette, — et la lance dans la rue sur le parasol d’un passant. Madame Prune apparaît ensuite, agitée, défaite, prenant successivement toutes les poses de la consternation croissante. Qu’est-ce donc qu’elle a, cette vieille dame, et pourquoi s’approche-t-elle de moi ainsi, jusqu’à gêner mes mouvements quand je me retourne?? . . . C’est inouï ce qu’il me reste à faire, ce dernier jour, de courses en djin chez des marchands de bibelots, des fournisseurs, des emballeurs. Pourtant, avant qu’on dérange mon appartement, je veux prendre le temps de le dessiner . . . comme jadis, à Stamboul . . . Il semble vraiment que tout ce que je fais ici soit l’amère dérision de ce que j’avais fait là-bas . . . Mais cette fois, ce n’est pas que j’y tienne, à ce logis; c’est seulement parce qu’il est gentil et étrange; le dessin en sera curieux à conserver. Donc, je cherche une feuille d’album et je commence tout de suite, assis par terre, appuyé sur mon pupitre à sauterelles en relief, — tandis que, derrière moi, les trois femmes, bien près, bien près, suivent les mouvements de mon crayon avec une attention étonnée. Jamais elles n’avaient vu dessiner d’après nature, l’art japonais étant tout de convention, et ma manière les ravit. Peut-être n’ai-je pas la sûreté ni la prestesse manuelle de M. Sucre lorsqu’il groupe ses charmantes cigognes, mais je possède quelques notions de perspective qui lui manquent; et puis on m’a enseigné à rendre les choses comme je les

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vois, sans leur donner des attitudes ingénieusement outrées et grimaçantes; alors ces trois Japonaises sont émerveillées de l’air réel de mon croquis. En poussant des petits cris admiratifs, elles se montrent du doigt les objets, à mesure que leur forme et leur ombre s’ébauchent en noir sur mon papier. Chrysanthème me regarde avec une nuance nouvelle d’intérêt: — Anata itchiban! dit-elle. (Littéralement: «Â€Toi premier!€» ce qui signifie: «Â€Tu es tout à fait un personnage de premier brin!€») Mademoiselle Oyouki surenchérit encore sur cette appréciation et s’écrie dans un élan d’enthousiasme: — Anata bakari! («Â€Toi seul!€» c’est-à-dire: «Â€Il n’y a que toi au monde; tous les autres, auprès de toi, ne sont que négligeable fretin.€») Madame Prune ne dit rien, elle mais je vois bien qu’elle n’en pense pas moins; ses poses alanguies, sa main qui à tout instant frôle la mienne, me confirment même dans cette idée, que son air consterné de tout à l’heure m’avait fait concevoir: évidemment l’ensemble de ma personne parle à son imagination, restée romanesque après l’âge! — je m’en irai avec le regret de l’avoir compris trop tard!! . . .

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Walks through Japan by Emile Guimet

Vol. 1 chapter i

F irst I mpressions 1 When at last, after a crossing of twenty-three days, we caught sight of the Japanese coast drawing its strange silhouettes in the morning fog, our souls were seized by two emotions. The quite justified pleasure of arriving in port was augmented by the joy of finally reaching this almost fantastical country, which the eighteenth century made us discover through its lacquers, its screens, its porcelains and ivories, and which recent political events and new means of travel have suddenly brought to our door. If, for the last several years, Japan has allowed itself to be invaded by the ideas and products of peoples who claim to be civilized, it has vigorously responded by sending� us in profusion its bronzes, its ceramics, its paintings, its toys, and even its young countrymen, who come with a passion to initiate themselves into the advance of progress. The American ship Alaska, which brought us from San Francisco, had among its passengers three Japanese who had gone to America to earn their engineering credentials. Since dawn, they have been on the 1. The title of this chapter is in English in the original. [cr]

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deck of the ship, attentive like us—no doubt more so—to the distant panorama that the Japanese islands unfurled upon the horizon. Little by little, we entered the bay of Yeddo. To the right and left, strangely carved white cliffs presented us with the Japan we had dreamed of. Greenery drapes the hills, hardening here and there into crusts of vegetation. Great pines crown the heights with their jagged profiles created by the vertical lines of their trunks and the horizontals of their branches. A landscape of brushstrokes that stand out against a violet sky and reflect in blue waters. It is raining. On the decks of the big junks that pass us are men quite naked, who thus avoid drenching their clothes. Their hair is cut in the Japanese style, and the little blue and white cloths that serve as their headdress suffice to indicate their nationality. Here and there little boats with fishermen always in pairs, one big and one small, look like the kind of mirage that doubles everything, giving two outlines, two sails, two wakes, but with one always the miniature of the other. Little by little, the Sampans of the hotels encircle the ship, and all manner of boats come to collect their wares. The men who are not naked wear blue smocks with large white designs or coats made of straw, a bristly thatch that is guaranteed against the rain and gives the person wearing it the appearance of a porcupine. But what is this classical vision that has appeared on deck? A group of young Romans advances with dignity, all clothed in long togas, their hair worn like Titus, their fine features delicate and pure with nothing Asiatic about their physiognomy; these are certainly the sons of Brutus that we see coming toward us. This group escaped from the works of Cicero heads directly for our Japanese fellow travelers. The young Romans bow so low before the Mongolian engineers that their hands brush their bare feet. These budding senators are the servants of our Japanese. Why are the masters so homely and the servants so handsome? The first puzzle. We will encounter many others! The luggage must nevertheless be dealt with, but the rain makes things very difficult. Let those more pressed for time pass by and wait it out between decks sitting on the trunks. The young Japanese have installed themselves upon their masters’ parcels in the position of bas-reliefs: graceful pleats, firm contours, posed with bare arms, feet crossed, heads tilted, the harmony of forms blended with the draperies—everything recalls the solemn beauty of

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classical sculpture. . . . I never expected to see on an American ship within view of a Far Eastern port such a vivid illusion of the classical past. Not without difficulty do we admit ourselves into the tiny cabin of the Grand Hotel’s Sampans, and four oarsmen, rather like scullers, carry us quickly to the customs house. The ferrymen cry out regularly to encourage themselves and to achieve a regular rhythm. The oars positioned in the direction of the boat turn and oscillate in the pivot that holds them so that, whether by the balance of front and back or by the rotation of the men’s hands, the blade of the oar reproduces exactly the tail movements of fish. The alternating oscillations of the oarsmen recall, in the end, the back-and-forth of the hooks on a knitting machine. Such delicate and graceful hands seem to produce no effort, and their upraised movements suggest more the idea of a castanet player than of a rough sailor. The customs officials seem much more concerned to see if we have compromising papers than to discover if we are bringing in any contraband. In the end, the official, who can read only Japanese, wastes all his time—and ours—leafing though our letters and papers. At the hotel there are a great many servants. An Asian habit. They do not seem to work hard, but everything they do is done with care. I am struck to discover among them similarities with faces I am accustomed to seeing in France. Have I then come to Japan in order to get to know the natives of my hometown?2 chapter vi .

L ittle D ialog

by

Way

of

A dvice

for the

R eader

At the hotel, people chat, and naturally I undergo the usual interrogations. —Monsieur has come to Japan on business? —No, sir. —Then for banking? —That is no more the case. —Doubtless monsieur is called here as an employee of the Japanese government? —Still less. 2. The original text gives the name Neuville-sur-Saône, the industrial suburb of Lyon in which Guimet’s family’s textile mills were located. [cr]

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—Monsieur is probably in diplomacy. —Not for the world. —Perhaps in journalism? —Not at all. —You travel then for your own pleasure? —Not exactly. I travel neither for my own pleasure nor for that of others. I have come to study the religions of the Far East. —. . . ?! After a moment of stupefaction, the assault begins again. —Monsieur is a Catholic missionary? —No. —A Protestant pastor? —No. —You are an author and you want to write a book about Japan. —No doubt. Perhaps several. —There we go! These tourists are incorrigible. You will spend a month here, and on your return to France, you will write of the mores, of nature, of politics in Japan. But, monsieur, you will not know the first word. Those of us who have lived here for fifteen years, we take care never to publish a line on this incomprehensible land. —But then, permit me to point out to you that, since the residents of longstanding, such as yourself, do not write on Japan, it is up to the visitors passing through to say something of it. Moreover, there are two ways to discuss a country: there is the statistical approach that gives you exact information concerning the population, the products, the commerce, the laws, etc., and there is the artistic approach, which seeks only to convey the impressions received, be they only of a few minutes duration, and believe me, these first impressions are the most lively. —Yes, and it’s by that approach that people manage to create a work that teems with errors, being poorly informed down to the least detail. If you only knew how everything published on Japan makes us laugh, you would stick your travel journal in your pocket and leave it there until your return to France, a country you have known much longer and about which you might do well to speak the truth. —I shall do no such thing! If I wanted to know what France is, I would read the travel memoirs of a Japanese. And by this same logic, when a European wants to know Japan or any other Oriental country, he seeks out photographs, travelers’ sketches and tourists’ impressions, certain that these notes taken day by day will send the reader

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himself traveling and allow him to share the pleasures and the trials, the joys and disappointments, the enthusiasms and the deceptions that constitute the attraction of a tour around the world. —At ease, monsieur, but you will certainly amuse us! It is thus with the intention of being agreeable to these gentlemen that I continue to take notes and to study with care the least sensations that this interesting voyage provokes in me. Vol. 2 excerpt from chapter xxix .

P ainter

and

C riminal

Who then had painted these images so full of gaiety?3 No one knew. Or rather no one wanted to seem to know. Nevertheless, there is the signature. What does it say? Silence. Is it then one of those names of the accursed, which no one may pronounce without running the gravest risks? At last our tenacity yielded the knowledge that the artist is named Kiosaï. And here is his story, which I promised not to tell anyone . . . in Japan at least. Kiosaï was born in Yeddo. A student of Karino, the Tycoon’s painter,4 he was not long in distinguishing himself by his ability. Once he came of age, he found that his master’s style lacked vivacity and boldness, and, to the great despair of his teacher, he turned to humorous sketches. But at the same time he took up the bad habit of drinking to excess and committed himself to living as he pleased without caring for the customs that are much respected in Japan. The name he adopted to sign his works means mad. And because they compared him to Shoofoo, the legendary monkey who was always drinking, he signed himself Shoofoo-Kiosaï, the mad, drunk monkey. 3. This text translates the conclusion of chapter 29 in its entirety (Emile Guimet, Promenades japonaises [Paris: G. Charpentier, 1880], vol. 2, 184–185). All ellipses are in the original; nothing has been omitted.Â� 4. The Japanese-derived term “tycoon” is widely used in nineteenth-century texts to refer to the Tokugawa shoguns who ruled Japan until the restoration of the Mikado, or emperor, in 1867. Borrowed from the Chinese, the term “tycoon,” meaning “great prince,” was circulated by the Japanese to impress Occidentals with the political authority of the shogun, since that title referred just to military authority.

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Near the end of the Tycoon’s reign, the ministers to this great minister found themselves in a critical position; they were felt to be under the influence of threats and protestations; former soldiers, adversaries of reform, began to organize, and a ministerial change was predicted. Kiosaï characterized the situation by representing a chess game where the ministers outfitted like chessmen could not stop the checkmate of the Tycoon. The skilled composition was much admired, the liveliness of the details, the energy of the whole thing . . . and Kiosaï was hauled off to prison for the offense of undermining the Tycoon’s government. Shortly after his release, our man immediately made another political cartoon and once again was living at government expense. And each time his sentence was up, his brush committed a new offense that brought him once more before the Tycoon’s efficient, imprisoning courts. The change of government, the arrival of the Mikado in Tokyo, gave him a little respite. He was even able to attend the great congress of Japanese artists and authors that took place in the capital under the auspices of the imperial government. At the end of the meeting, they begged Kiosaï to offer a demonstration of his skill. Seizing his brush, he depicted the great lords, nobly dressed, before whom English, American, and French foreigners indulged in a disrespectful pantomime. The gestures of the great lords who held their noses were enough to indicate the nature of the outrage they were submitted to. The Japanese, who have not yet developed a taste for euphemism and who willingly face honesty like the Romans and the French of Rabelais’ time, do not fear this kind of joke. The members of the congress delighted in Kiosaï’s composition; it passed from hand to hand and earned lively acclaim. But the police, who were among the party, demanded certain explanations of the artist. They wanted to know who these ridiculed nobles were. —The ministers of Japan, exclaimed the artist, the ministers who tolerate all these European thieves. So the gendarmes wrapped his hands in those little cords they always have with them, and Kiosaï discovered there was not much difference between the Mikado’s prisons and those of the Tycoon.

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chapter xxx .

A D uel Whatever else may be the case, Kiosaï is considered one of the most skillful painters of Japan. Having learned that when he is not in prison he lives in a little house hidden among the gardens outside Tokyo, we leave, Régamey and I, to make the acquaintance of this intelligent and unfortunate artist. Our rickshaw men had some trouble locating the cartoonist’s shack, and we had some difficulty being invited inside, for our European clothes, usually worn by employees of the government, boded no good to poor Kiosaï, who wracked his brains to know what new crime had brought him to the attention of high-ranking men. However, we explain ourselves and enter the house built of straw and paper, two rooms comprising only six square meters. The entry hall is entirely filled by two women, who prostrate themselves to receive us. The second room is his studio, full of light and cluttered with rolls of paper, brushes, and boxes of pigments. Two or three theatrical masks, some framed calligraphy rehearsing philosophical maxims, and on a table a dragon and a very ancient religious figure in terra-cotta; these are household gods, and offerings of cakes and sake are put in front of them. The room is brightened by the garden that surrounds and invades it; tree branches enter where the dividers are not quite closed. A young cat, with its tail cut off as is customary, climbs the stacks of paper and overturns the dainty water pitchers. During its visit, it even takes the liberty of appropriating the cake offered to the little terra-cotta god. The artist seems very happy and very excited by the fuss we make around him. He continually rubs his right arm with his left hand, which, in Japan, is the sign of concern or violent perplexity. We chat, thanks to the interpreter Kondo who accompanies us, and little by little our party becomes quite cheerful. Madame Kiosaï brings tea and cakes just like the one offered to the little god. Régamey has already drawn his weapons. Squatting being impossible in his trousers and gaiters, he is seated on the mat with his legs before him and his sketchbook on his knees. He asks Kiosaï for permission to draw his portrait. Kiosaï, bewildered, prostrates himself to signal acquiescence and thanks; he sucks air as hard as he can through his teeth to show how honored he is.

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But he is not the man to let things go without riposte, and, spying from the corner of his eye what is taking place in Félix’ sketchbook, he has surreptitiously, almost in the sleeve of his kimono, prepared his brushes, mixed his colors, and laid out a leaf of paper on the mat. Without ceasing to pose, he starts to sketch a rapid portrait of his portraitist. It goes without saying: it’s a duel! Who then has published the claim that Japanese artists are incapable of portraiture? Oh Muse, as Homer would say, inspire me! Help me to recount the importance and the valor of the two combatants. Recall for me the precedents, the origins, the race, the history, and the achievements of each of them. Teach me to describe the attack and the response, the strokes of the brush, and the marks of the pencil that fly back and forth beneath my eyes. On one side, the French painter, son and brother of artists. The first among the humble inventors of such rare merit that they created a new art—chromolithography—his father placed crayons in his hand instead of a rattle when he was just a baby. Guillaume, his older brother whose life was so short, left paintings of military subjects, works so strong, knowledgeable, and full of grandeur and truth, that the state has gathered them into its museums. His other brother, Frédéric, is a painter, an etcher, and a lithographer, who wields the brush, the etching needle, and the crayon at will. As for Félix, the hero of this struggle has traversed half the globe to

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This time the artist with the rapid pencil has crossed the Pacific Ocean. He has fallen upon Japan and done Kiosaï the honor of choosing him as combatant. Kiosaï has accepted the challenge. And here are the two of them with fiery eye and bated breath, each attacking the other, drawing in a fury of speed, attempting to be fast and accurate. —Done! cried Félix. —Yoroshi! replied Kiosaï. And the two portraits looked very like, that goes without saying, but above all astonishing for the daring and the ingenuity of their making. And so I cried out in my enthusiasm: —Bravo, Kiosaï! Bravo, Régamey! Several days later, Kiosaï came to the hotel to repay our visit. Knowing my taste for the study of religions, he brought me a Penitent Buddha that he had painted especially for me. This composition demonstrates what liveliness Japanese artists can achieve even when they take on a classical theme. Kiosaï’s Sakya-Mouni is at once reserved and resplendent. Sitting on straw like Job, he meditates so deeply he is not aware that his nails have grown long and his stomach empty. His head swells with revelation through his unkempt hair, while the profusion of his luxuriously cut clothing is all there is to indicate that this is an Indian prince who loses himself in this way in order to save mankind. During his visit Kiosaï held a blank white fan. While chatting he pulled a brush from his belt, wetted it, and traced it quickly over his fan. Despite the difficulties presented by the deep folds of the object on which he painted, he finished in a few strokes and presented us his fan, telling us that he had made a religious painting. I did not immediately see how the composition was sacred. A telegraph pole on one side; on the other, a green frog pulling a rickshaw carrying a brown frog decked out with the handle of an umbrella. I saw, rather, a summary of modern inventions in Japan. But the artist had me observe that the electric wire was supported by a lotus stem, that the wheel of the rickshaw was a leaf of the sacred plant, and finally that the frog, an animal characteristic of water plants, was here a sort of defining factor of the idea. And this is how, in Japan, the old dogmas are transformed and replaced by new ideas.

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Promenades Japonaises par Emile Guimet

Vol. 1 chapitre i .

F irst I mpressions Lorsqu’après vingt-trois jours de traversée on entrevoit les terres japonaises dessiner, dans les brumes du matin, leurs silhouettes étranges, une double émotion envahit l’âme. Au plaisir bien légitime d’arriver au port vient s’ajouter la joie de toucher enfin à ce pays presque fantastique que le XVIIIe siècle nous a fait deviner sur des laques, des paravents, des porcelaines et des ivoires, et que les récents événements politiques, les nouveaux moyens de locomotion ont, tout d’un coup, mis à notre portée. Si, depuis quelques années, le Japon s’est laissé envahir par les idées et les produits des peuples qui se prétendent civilisés, il a riposté avec vigueur en nous envoyant à profusion ses bronzes, ses faïences, ses peintures, ses joujoux et même ses jeunes indigènes, qui viennent avec ardeur s’initier aux progrès nouveaux. Le navire américain l’Alaska qui nous a amenés de San-Francisco a, parmi ses passagers, trois Japonais qui sont allés en Amérique prendre leurs brevets d’ingénieurs. Ils sont depuis l’aurore sur le pont du bateau, attentifs comme nous, plus que nous sans doute, au panorama lointain que les îles du Japon déroulent à l’horizon. Peu à peu nous entrons dans la baie d’Yeddo. A droite et à gauche

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de hautes falaises blanches, bizarrement découpées, nous font apparaître le Japon tel que nous l’avons rêvé. La verdure festonne les collines et forme çà et là comme des croûtes de végétation. Les grands pins couronnent les hauteurs de leurs contours mouvementés, formés de lignes verticales dans les tiges et horizontales dans les branches. Paysage à coups de pinceau qui se découpe sur un ciel violet et se reflète dans les eaux bleues. Il pleut. Les grandes jonques que nous croisons sont montées par des hommes tout nus, qui évitent par là de mouiller leurs vêtements. Leurs chevelures arrangées à la japonaise et la petite étoffe bleue et blanche qui leur sert de coiffure indiquent suffisamment leur nationalité. Çà et là des barques de pêcheurs toujours à deux, une grande à côté d’une petite, font croire à une sorte de mirage qui dédouble les objets et donne deux contours, deux voiles, deux sillages, mais dont l’un est le diminutif de l’autre. Peu à peu les Sanpangs des hôtels entourent le navire, et des barques de tous formats viennent chercher les marchandises. Les hommes qui ne sont pas nus ont des blouses bleues à grands dessins blancs ou des vêtements de paille, chaume hérissé qui garantit parfaitement de la pluie et donne à l’individu qui le porte un faux air de porc-épic. Mais quelle est cette vision antique qui apparaît sur le pont du bateau? Un groupe de jeunes Romains s’avance avec dignité; ils sont vêtus de la longue robe latine, ils ont les cheveux coupés à la Titus, leurs traits sont fins, délicats et purs, rien d’asiatique dans leur physionomie; ce sont bien les fils de Brutus que nous voyons venir à nous. Ce groupe échappé des œuvres de Cicéron se dirige droit vers nos compagnons de voyage japonais, et les jeunes Romains s’inclinent devant les ingénieurs mongoliques jusqu’à ce que leurs mains touchent leurs pieds nus. Ces sénateurs en herbe sont les domestiques de nos Japonais. Pourquoi les maîtres sont-ils si laids et les serviteurs si beaux? Premier problème. Nous en rencontrerons bien d’autres! Il faut pourtant s’occuper de ses bagages, mais la pluie gêne beaucoup. On laisse passer les plus pressés et l’on attend dans l’entre-pont assis sur ses malles. Les jeunes Japonais se sont campés sur les colis de leurs maîtres avec des attitudes de bas-reliefs; la grâce des plis, la fermeté des contours, la pose des bras nus, des pieds croisés, des têtes inclinées, l’harmonie des formes qui se combinent avec les étoffes, tout rappelle les beautés

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graves de l’antique sculpture . . . Je ne m’attendais pas à avoir sur un bateau américain en vue d’un port de l’extrême Orient une si vive hallucination de souvenirs classiques. Non sans difficulté nous nous introduisons dans la cabine minuscule du Sanpangs du Grand-Hôtel et quatre rameurs à la godille nous amènent rapidement au bâtiment de la douane. Les bateliers poussent des cris cadencés pour se donner du courage et pour obtenir un mouvement régulier. Les avirons placés dans le sens du bateau tournent et oscillent sur le pivot qui les retient, de sorte que, soit par le balancement d’avant en arrière, soit par la rotation imprimée par la main, la palette de la rame reproduit exactement le coup de queue des poissons. Les oscillations alternes des rameurs rappellent, à la longue, le va-et-vient des crochets d’une machine à tricoter. Les mains fines et gracieuses semblent ne produire aucun effort et leur mouvement relevé donne plutôt l’idée d’un joueur de castagnettes que d’un rude batelier. A la douane on paraît beaucoup plus préoccupé de vérifier si nous avons des papiers compromettants que de constater si nous entrons de la contrebande. Du reste, le douanier qui ne sait lire que le japonais, perd tout à fait son temps — et le nôtre — à feuilleter nos lettres et nos journaux. A l’hôtel, les serviteurs sont très-nombreux. Habitude asiatique. Ils ne paraissent pas travailler énormément, mais tout ce qu’ils font est fait avec soin. Je suis frappé de trouver parmi eux des ressemblances avec les figures que j’ai l’habitude de voir en France. Suis-je donc venu au Japon pour faire connaissance avec la race de Neuvillesur-Saône? chapitre vi .

P etit D ialogue

en

M anière d ’Avis

au

L ecteur

A l’hôtel on cause, et je subis naturellement les interrogatoires d’usage. — Monsieur vient au Japon pour faire du commerce? — Non, monsieur. — Alors c’est pour faire de la banque? — Pas davantage. — Sans doute monsieur est appelé ici comme employé du gouvernement japonais? — Encore moins.

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— Monsieur est probablement dans la diplomatie? — Pas le moins du monde. — Peut-être dans le journalisme? — Du tout. — Vous voyagez donc pour votre plaisir? — Pas précisément. Je ne voyage ni pour mon plaisir ni pour celui des autres. Je viens étudier les religions de l’extrême Orient. — . . . ?! Après un moment de stupéfaction on revient à la charge. — Monsieur est missionnaire catholique? — Non. — Pasteur protestant? — Non. — Vous êtes littérateur et vous voulez faire un livre sur le Japon. — Sans doute. Et peut-être plusieurs. — Allons bon! ces touristes sont incorrigibles. Vous allez passer un mois ici et à votre retour en France vous allez écrire sur les mœurs, la nature, la politique du Japon. Mais, monsieur, vous n’en saurez pas le premier mot. Nous, qui habitons ce pays depuis quinze ans, nous nous garderions bien de publier une ligne sur cette contrée incompréhensible. — Mais alors, permettez-moi de vous faire observer que puisque les vieux résidents comme vous n’écrivent rien sur le Japon, il faut bien que les voyageurs de passage en disent quelque chose. Et puis, il y a deux manières de parler d’un pays: il y a le procédé statistique qui vous donne des renseignements exacts sur la population, les productions, le commerce, les lois, etc., et le procédé artistique qui ne cherche qu’à rendre les impressions reçues, fussent-elles de quelques minutes, et ce sont ces premières impressions, croyez-le, qui sont les plus vives. — Oui, et c’est par ce procédé qu’on arrive à faire un ouvrage qui fourmille d’erreurs, parce que sur la moindre chose on est mal renseigné! Si vous saviez comme tout ce qui se publie sur le Japon nous fait rire, vous mettriez votre carnet de voyage dans votre poche et vous l’y laisseriez jusqu’à votre retour en France, pays sur lequel vous en savez plus long que sur celui-ci et sur lequel vous feriez bien de dire la vérité. — Je m’en garderai bien! Quand je voudrai savoir ce qu’est la France, je lirai les impressions de voyage d’un Japonais. Et c’est par cette même raison que lorsqu’un Européen veut connaître le Japon ou

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tout autre pays d’Orient, il recherche les photographies, les croquis des voyageurs et les impressions des touristes, avec la certitude que ces notes prises au jour le jour feront voyager le lecteur lui-même et lui donneront sa part des plaisirs et des ennuis, des joies et des mécomptes, des enthousiasmes et des déceptions qui constituent l’attrait d’une excursion autour du monde. — A votre aise, monsieur, mais vous allez bien nous amuser! C’est donc dans l’intention d’être agréable à ces messieurs que je continue à prendre des notes et à étudier avec soin les moindres sensations que cet intéressant voyage me fait éprouver. Vol. 2 chapitre xxix

P eintre

[ extrait ].

et malfaiteur

Mais qui donc a peint ces images si pleines de gaieté? Nul ne le sait. Ou plutôt nul ne veut paraître le savoir. Pourtant la signature est là. Comment se lit-elle? Silence. Est-ce donc un de ces noms maudits que personne ne peut prononcerÂ� sans courir les dangers les plus graves? A force de ténacité nous finissons par savoir que l’artiste s’appelle Kiosaï. Et voici son histoire que j’ai bien promis de ne raconter à personne . . . au Japon du moins. Kiosaï est né à Yeddo. Élève de Karino, peintre du Taïkoun, il ne tarda pas à se distinguer par son habileté. Arrivé à un certain âge, il trouva que le style de son maître manquait de vivacité et de hardiesse et, au grand désespoir de son professeur, il se mit à faire des dessins humoristiques. Mais en même temps il prit la mauvaise habitude de boire à outrance et se mit à vivre à sa fantaisie sans se soucier des usages si respectés au Japon. Le nom qu’il a adopté pour signer ses ouvrages signifie fou. Et comme on le comparait au Shoofoo,€le singe légendaire qui boit sans cesse, il signa Shoofoo-Kiosaï, le singe ivrogne et fou. Sur la fin du Taïkounat, la position des ministres du grand ministreÂ� devint critique; on les sentait sous l’influence de menaces et de protestations; les anciens guerriers adversaires de la réforme s’agitaient et l’on prévoyait un changement de ministère. Kiosaï caractérisa la situation en représentant un jeu d’échec où les ministres costumés en pièces à jouer ne pouvaient plus empêcher le Taïkoun d’être mat. On

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admira beaucoup l’art de la composition, l’esprit des détails, la verve de l’ensemble . . . et Kiosaï fut mené en prison pour délit d’injure au gouvernement taïkounal. A peine délivré, notre homme s’empressa de faire une autre caricature politique et, de nouveau, il vécut aux frais de gouvernement. Et chaque fois que la durée de sa peine était expirée, son pinceau commettait un nouveau délit qui l’amenait encore une fois devant la justice expéditive et emprisonnante du Taïkoun. Le changement de gouvernement, l’arrivée du Mikado à Tokio lui donnèrent en peu de répit. Il put même assister au grand Congrès des peintres et des lettrés japonais qui eut lieu dans la capitale sous les auspices du gouvernement impérial. A la fin de la réunion on supplia Kiosaï de donner une preuve de son habileté. Saisissant son pinceau, il représenta des grands seigneurs, noblement vêtus, devant lesquels des étrangers, Anglais, Américains, Français, se livraient à une pantomime irrespectueuse. Le geste des grands seigneurs qui se bouchaient le nez indiquait suffisamment la nature de l’outrage qu’ils subissaient. Les Japonais, qui n’ont pas encore le goût de l’euphémisme et qui volontiers bravent l’honnêteté comme les Latins et les Français du temps de Rabelais, ne craignent pas ce genre de plaisanterie. Aussi les membres du Congrès goûtèrent fort la composition de Kiosaï; elle passa de main en main et eut un vif succès. Mais la police, qui était de la fête, demanda à l’artiste quelques explications. Elle voulut savoir qui étaient ces nobles personnages ainsi bafoués. — Les ministres du Japon, s’écria l’artiste, les ministres qui supportent tout de ces voleurs d’Européens. Alors les policemen lui passèrent aux mains les petites cordelettes qu’ils ont toujours avec eux et Kiosaï put constater qu’il n’y avait pas grande différence entre les prisons du Mikado et celles du Taïkoun. chapitre xxx .

U n D uel Quoi qu’il en soit, Kiosaï est considéré comme un des plus habiles peintres du Japon. Ayant appris que, lorsqu’il n’est pas en prison, il habite une petite maison perdue au milieu des jardins dans la banlieue de Tokio, nous partons, Régamey et moi, pour faire la connaissance de cet intelligent et malheureux artiste.

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Nos djinrikis eurent quelque peine à découvrir la cabane du caricaturiste et nous-mêmes quelque difficulté à nous faire recevoir, car nos habits européens, portés d’ordinaire par les employés du gouvernement, ne disaient rien de bon au pauvre Kiosaï, qui se demandait quel crime nouveau avait attiré sur lui l’attention des gens haut placés. Pourtant on s’explique et nous pénétrons dans la maison construite en chaume et en papier, petite de 6 mètres carrés et composée de deux pièces. Le vestibule d’entrée est entièrement rempli par deux femmes qui se prosternent pour nous recevoir. La seconde chambre est l’atelier, plein de lumière, encombré de rouleaux de papiers, de pinceaux et de boîtes à couleur. Deux ou trois masques comiques, des inscriptions encadrées, reproduisant des sentences philosophiques; et, sur une table, une chimère et un fétiche en terre cuite d’une très haute antiquité; ce sont les dieux lares; on a placé devant eux des offrandes de gâteaux et de sakké. La chambre est égayée par le jardin qui l’entoure et l’envahit; des branches d’arbre passent à travers les cloisons mal fermées. Un jeune chat, à la queue coupée, selon l’usage, escalade les piles de papier et renverse les burettes à eau. Il se permet même, pendant la visite, de s’adjuger le gâteau offert au petit dieu en terre cuite. L’artiste paraît très heureux et très ému de€la démarche que nous faisons auprès de lui. Il se frotte constamment le bras droit avec la main gauche, ce qui est, chez les Japonais, le signe d’une grande préoccupation ou d’un violent embarras. On cause, grâce à l’interprète Kondo qui nous accompagne, et peu à peu la gaieté se met de la partie. Mme Kiosaï apporte du thé et des gâteaux identiques à celui qu’on a offert au petit dieu. Régamey a déjà tiré ses armes. La pose accroupie étant incompatible avec ses guêtres et ses pantalons, il s’est assis sur la natte les jambes à demi étendues et, son album sur ses genoux, il demande à Kiosaï l’autorisation de lui faire son portrait. Kiosaï, tout confus, se prosterne en signe d’acquiescement et de reconnaissance; il aspire tant qu’il peut, les dents serrées, pour témoigner combien il est honoré. Mais il n’est pas homme à se laisser faire sans riposter, et, surveillant du coin de l’œil ce qui se passe sur l’album de Félix, il a sournoisement, presque dans la manche de son kimono, préparé ses pinceaux, délayé ses couleurs, étendu sur la natte une feuille de papier et, tout

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en ayant l’air de poser, il commence d’une main rapide le portrait de son portraitiste. Il n’y a pas à dire; c’est un duel! Qui donc a affirmé, qui donc a imprimé que les artistes japonais sont incapables de faire un portrait? O Muse, comme dirait Homère, inspire-moi! Aide-moi à retracer l’importance et la valeur des deux champions. Rappelle-moi les antécédents, les origines, la race, l’histoire et les prouesses de chacun d’eux. Apprends-moi à décrire l’attaque et la riposte, les coups de pinceau et les coups de crayon qui s’échangent sous mes yeux. D’un côté, le peintre français, fils et frère d’artistes. Le premier parmi ces initiateurs modestes et de si rare mérite qui ont créé un art nouveau: la chromolithographie, son père lui mit en main, tout petit, des crayons en guise de hochet. Guillaume, son frère aîné, dont l’existence fut si courte, a laissé comme peintre de sujets militaires, des œuvres fortes, savantes, pleines de grandeur et de vérité, que l’État a recueillies dans ses musées. Son autre frère, Frédéric, est peintre, graveur, lithographe, maniant à volonté le pinceau, la pointe et le crayon. Et lui, Félix, le héros du combat, a parcouru la moitié du globe pour trouver au Japon un athlète digne de lui! Élève de l’école des Beaux-Arts où il obtint une médaille pour l’anatomie, il fut, à l’âge de vingt-trois ans, nommé professeur à l’École nationale de dessin, puis à l’École spéciale d’architecture. Collaborateur des principaux journaux illustrés de Paris, il fut bientôt attiré par les journaux illustrés de Londres, puis par ceux de l’Amérique. Comme certains ouvriers font leur tour de France, Régamey, son crayon à la main, entreprit le tour du monde. En passant, il présidait à la réorganisation des études à l’Académie de dessin de Chicago, récemment détruite par l’incendie. Puis il inventait les conférences en dessin qui eurent un si grand succès; en moins d’une heure, il couvrait de croquis gigantesques des kilomètres de papier sans fin, touchant à tout: à l’art, à l’histoire, à l’actualité, à l’ethnographie, voir même à la morale, témoin la conférence qu’il fit un soir dans une église de Boston en prenant pour sujet: les bienfaits de la tempérance. Cette fois l’artiste au crayon rapide a traversé l’Océan pacifique. Il s’est abattu sur le Japon et a fait à Kiosaï l’honneur de le choisir pour lutteur. Kiosaï a accepté le combat.

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Et les voici tous deux l’œil enflammé, la respiration retenue, s’attaquant l’un l’autre, dessinant avec hâte, avec fureur, cherchant â faire vite et parfait. — Fini! s’écria Félix. — Yoroshi! riposte Kiosaï. Et les deux portraits apparaissent ressemblants, cela va sans dire, mais surtout étonnants de hardiesse et d’ingéniosité dans le procédé. Alors, moi de m’écrier dans mon enthousiasme: — Bravo, Kiosaï! Bravo, Régamey! Quelques jours après, Kiosaï vint nous rendre à l’hôtel la visite que nous lui avions faite. Comme il savait mon goût pour la science des religions, il m’apporta un bouddha pénitent qu’il avait peint exprès pour moi. On voit dans cette composition quelle verve peut avoir l’artiste japonais, même quand il s’attaque à un sujet classique. Le Sakia-Mouni de Kiosaï est à la fois concentré et resplendissant. Assis sur la paille, comme Job, il réfléchit à outrance sans s’apercevoir que ses ongles poussent et que son estomac se creuse. La bosse de la révélation surgit au milieu de ses cheveux incultes, et l’amplitude de ses vêtements aux contours luxueux indique seule que c’est un prince de l’Inde qui s’oublie ainsi pour sauver les hommes. Pendant sa visite, Kiosaï tenait un éventail tout blanc. En causant, il tira un pinceau de sa ceinture, le mouilla et le promena rapidement sur son éventail. Malgré les difficultés présentées par les plis accentués de l’objet qu’il peignait, en quelques touches il eut fini, et nous présenta son éventail en nous avertissant qu’il avait fait une peinture religieuse. Je ne vis pas tout de suite en quoi la composition avait un caractère sacré. Un poteau télégraphique d’un côté; de l’autre, une grenouille verte traînant dans un djinrikicha une grenouille brune ornée d’un manche de parapluie; je voyais plutôt là le résumé des inventions modernes au Japon. Mais l’auteur me fit observer que le fil électrique était supporté par une tige de lotus, que la roue du djinrikicha était une feuille de la plante sacrée, et que, enfin, la grenouille, animal caractéristique des plantes d’eau, était là une sorte de déterminatif de l’idée. Et voilà comme quoi, au Japon, les vieux dogmes sont transformés remplacés par les idées nouvelles.

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INDEX TO THE INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS

Numbers in boldface refer to figures

Adam, Jules, 13 Adam, Juliette, 23 Akutagawa Ryunosuke, 44 Alexandre, André, 12 Arnold, Edwin, 13, 16, 31, 55n72 Beato, Felix, 27 Beebee, Thomas, 42 Belasco, David, 12 Bernard, Emile, 125 Bertin, Louis-Emile, 30 Bracquemond, Félix, 17 Burty, Philippe, 13, 18–19, 35–37 Cernuschi, Henri, 36–37 Curval, Philippe, 45

Degron Henri, 13 Détang, Louis, 30 Duchess of Richelieu [Alice Heine], 26, 46 Duret, Théodore, 13, 36–37 Dury, Léon, 124–125 Ensor, Laura, 2 Eugénie, Empress of France, 20 Gambetta, Léon, 20 Gardner, John, 43 Gauguin, Paul, 125 Golden, Arthur, 49 Goncourt, Jules and Edmond de, 17, 34–35, 38 Gonse, Louis, 38 Guimet, Emile, 6, 19–21, 47;

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I ndex

in Japan, 24, 27, 123–125; museum, 19–20, 125; Promenades japonaises, 5, 20, 25, 39, 123–126 Hartmann, Georges, 12 Hearn, Lafcadio, 6, 10 Hokenson, Jan, 30 Holme, Charles, 59n113 Hunt, William Morris, 19 Hyde, Helen, 24, 54n58 Impressionism, 37 Japan, literature in, 44; Meiji history, 22–24, as military power, 48 Japonisme, 45; common themes, 32, 38–41, 123; popularization of, 40–41; political divisions, in 32, 34–35; 40–41; Régamey and, 17–18; as term, 13, 36 Kawakami, Akane, 30 Krafft, Hugues, 55n71 Kyosai, Kawanabe, 39, 57n98, 125–126 Long, John Luther, 1, 12, 43 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 19 Loti, Pierre, 6, 10, 16, 20; “A Ball at Edo, ” 44; on Buddhism, 22; as illustrator, 39, 57n97, 125; as imperialist, 11, 32; in Japan, 21, 23, 38, 127; on Japanese art, 39; Japoneries d’automne, 49n3; Madame

Chrysanthème, 1–4, 10–12, 16, 24, 26, 28–31, 38–39, 42–43, 45, 123–125; Madame Prune, 10, 48, 51n26 Louis XIV, King of France, 26 Madame Butterfly, 1 Maguire, Gregory, 43 Matsmoto, Soïchiro, 21, 124 Matsuda, Matt K., 30, 32, 40, 53n47, 58n100 Matsukata, Masako, 46–47 Matsukata, Masayoshi, 46–47 Mempes, Mortimer, 1, 2 Messager, André, 1–2, 12 Mutsuhito, Emperor of Japan, 22 Myrbach, Félician, 4–6, 5 Napoleon III, Emperor of France, 20, 35 Noguchi, Yone, 43–44, 59n108 Norman, Henry, 13, 31, 52n30 Orientalism, 49n5 Pissarro, Camille, 37 La Plume [journal], 2, 13, 14, 15, 26–27, 31, 35–37 Proust, Marcel, 42, 44 Puccini, Giacomo, 1, 3, 12, 49 Randall, Alice, 43 Régamey, Félix, 13; on Buddhism, 21–22; Drawing Instruction in the United States, 43; illustrations by, 5–6, 7, 9, 13, 14, 15, 17–21, 19, 24, 34; in Japan, 17, 21, 24, 26–27, 124–125;

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I ndex

Japan in Art and Industry, 38; on Japanese art, 39; as Japoniste, 17–18; on Loti, 2–3, 6, 12–13, 16–17, 26, 28–30; Okoma, 21, 124; paintings by, 24, 25, 47; political views, 20, 32, 40 Régamey, Frédéric, 17 Régamey, Guillaume [father], 17 Régamey, Guillaume [son], 17–19 reviews of The Pink Notebook, 30 Rhys, Jean, 43 Riberolles, Henri de, 13, 31, 55n73 Richie, Donald, 59n115

Rossi, Luigi, 4–6, 24, 33 Silverman, Debora, 35 Van Gogh, Vincent, and Madame Chrysanthème, 3–4, 4, 6, 8, 17, 42, 125–126 Vercier, Bruno, 30–31 Viaud, Louis Marie Julien. See Loti, Pierre Watanna, Onoto [Winifred Eaton], 43–44 Wilde, Oscar, 41–42 Wirgman, Charles, 27 Yamata, Kikou, 125 Yamata, Tadazoumi, 125

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ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

C hristopher R eed , who holds a doctorate in art history from Yale University, is currently associate professor of English and visual culture at the Pennsylvania State University. His previous books include Bloomsbury Rooms: Modernism, Subculture, and Domesticity (winner of the 2006 Historians of British Art Book Prize in the single author, post-circa 1800 subject category) and the edited volumes A Roger Fry Reader and Not at Home: The Suppression of Domesticity in Modern Art and Architecture (both 1996).

Production Notes

for Reed / The Pink Notebook Cover and interior design by Julie Matsuo-Chun Display type in Cochin; text in Century Schoolbook Printing and binding by Versa Press

literature

portrait of Félix Régamey, 1876, from Emile Guimet, Promenades japonaises, vol. 2: Tokio-Nikko (Paris: G. Charpentier, 1880). Front-cover art: Félix Régamey, watercolor illustration on the front endpapers of one copy of Le Cahier Rose de Madame Chrysanthème (Paris: Bibliothèque Artistique et Littéraire, 1894). By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Cover design: Julie Matsuo-Chun

Christopher Reed is associate professor of English and visual culture at the Pennsylvania State University.

Reed the Chrysanthème Papers

Back-cover art: Kawanabe Kyosai,

Pierre Loti’s novel Madame Chrysanthème (1888) enjoyed great popularity during the author’s lifetime, served as a source of Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly, and remains in print to this day as a classic in Western literature. Loti’s story, cast in the form of his fictionalized diary, describes the affair between a French naval officer and Chrysanthème, a temporary “bride” purchased in Nagasaki. More broadly, Loti’s novel helped define the terms in which Occidentals perceived Japan as delicate, feminine, and, to use one of Loti’s favorite words, “preposterous”—in short, ripe for exploitation.Â� Written by Félix Régamey, a talented illustrator with firsthand knowledge of Japan, The Pink Notebook of Madame Chrysanthème (1893) retells Loti’s story but this time as the diary of Chrysanthème. The book, presented here in an elegant English translation for the first time and together with the original French text and illustrations by Régamey and others, provocatively anticipates certain aspects of postmodern literature. Translator Christopher Reed’s rich and satisfying introduction compares Loti and Régamey in relation to attitudes toward Japan held by notable Japonistes Vincent van Gogh, Lafcadio Hearn, Edmond de Goncourt, and Philippe Burty. Reed provides further intellectual context by including new translations of excerpts from Loti’s novel as well as a portion of the travel journal of Régamey’s travel companion, the renowned collector Emile Guimet. Reed’s emphasis on competing Western ideas about Japan challenges conventional scholarly generalizations concerning Japanism in this era.

the Chrysanthème Papers the pink notebook of madame chrysanthème and other documents of french japonisme

ISBN 978-0-8248-3437-1

UNIVERSITY of HAWAI‘I PRESS Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888

90000

9 780824 834371 www.uhpress.hawaii.edu

C hristopher R eed